


Well You Can Get This Lap Dance Here for Free

by argo1993



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, College, Everyone Is Gay, Everyone loves classics, F/F, yennefer is a hot mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 24,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argo1993/pseuds/argo1993
Summary: Tissaia is a proffessor! Yennefer is a masters student!Tissaia has her entire life in order until a wirlwind with violet eyes forges a path right through the middle of it.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 428
Kudos: 325





	1. Chapter 1

Proffesor Tissaia de Vries was rarely challenged by much. She had found her undergraduate degree in classical civilisation difficult in places, but she found her masters somewhat easier, and her doctorate barely phased her at all. Once she’d earned the right to put the initials Dr. before her name, she was offered a job at Oxford University as a junior member of the classics department. Fast forward ten years, and she was still at Oxford, now a senior professor and floating through her career and life gloriously untested. And so she found herself standing in front of fifteen fresh-faced post graduate students, ready to give her first lecture of the year, comfortable, and relaxed. She glanced at the clock on the back wall, down at the students that were looking at her expectantly, and started talking.  
‘Good-morning. I am Professor de Vries, and, as I’d hope you’re all aware, this is the first of a series of lectures I’ll be giving on homosexuality in ancient Greece and Rome’.  
She looked each of her new students in the eye as she spoke. One boy at the back suppressed a snigger at the word ‘homosexuality’, and she quirked an eyebrow, silencing him before she continued.  
‘You obviously all did well enough in your undergraduate courses to be offered a place in our masters course, but that does not mean you will do well in my class. I expect hard work, engagement, commitment, and punctuality, and if you give this to me, there’s a chance I’ll give you good marks in return’.  
A few of her students smiled at her in acknowledgment, a few looked determinedly down and their desks. The boy who had giggled earlier had at the good decency to look worried. Tissaia turned back to her desk and sat behind it, pulling a pen out of her hair and dragging the register towards her.  
‘Every class will start with a register. If you miss one class without informing me before-hand you will receive an email enquiring why. Miss two in a row and you will receive a formal warning'. She started reeling off names, glancing up in between to see who everyone was. She worked her way through them, the flow interrupted only when she got to ‘Julian Pankratz’ and the sniggering boy informed her that he preferred to be called Jaskier. She pretended to make a note of this in the margins but in fact just drew a flower. She would call him Pankratz to spite him. Every name on the list was met with a ‘here’, until she got to the last one.  
‘Vengerberg, Yennifer?’  
Her voice fell into the surrounding silence, and she looked up to make sure the person wasn’t just particularly shy. She repeated herself, whilst doing a quick headcount. Fourteen. She was missing a body after all. She was just about to put a small cross next to the name when the door to the room flew open, and Tissaia watched a dark shape swan it’s way to the closest seat from the corner of her eye. She raised her head, a cutting remark just about to snap from her lips, when she found herself trapped by violet eyes she hadn’t even tried to meet. She stared for a moment, her brain very hurriedly trying to figure out what it was looking at and how it found themselves in this situation, before it finally came to the conclusion that this must be the late girl, and she was still staring. She forced her eyes back down to the register, and stared at that instead for a few moments before gathering her wits, standing up, and beginning to lecture while studiously avoiding looking where she wanted lest she lost her train of thought again and had to flee through the window.  
**  
Yennefer awoke to the sound of her phone blaring N.E.R.D’s Lapdance two inches away from her ear. She swatted around with her hand until she finally hit the annoying thing with enough force, or in the correct place, to shut it up. She took stock of her body’s situation, and found herself sprawled on a bed, face down, with her face buried between the pillows and one foot hanging off the bed. She half-heartedly attempted to lift her head up but to no avail, and promptly fell back asleep.  
Lapdance rang out once more, and Yennefer cursed past-her for having the foresight to set multiple alarms. She once again groped around for her phone, this time shifting to squint at the clock on the screen. 10.52.  
‘Shit!’ she screamed at the empty room. She jumped off the bed, got tangled in her sheets, and fell with a loud thud to the floor.  
7 minutes later she was half running, half walking to the classics building from her flat a few blocks away, doing up the buttons on her shirt with a partially-eaten apple in her mouth. She paused outside the stairs up to the main door of the building to tie her shoe-laces, and threw her apple core into the bushes. She resisted the urge to run at full speed into the building, apologising profusely to anyone and everyone she came across for being late. Instead she straightened her back, tousled her hair, wondered for a moment if she had done up to many buttons on her shirt in her haste, undid the offending button, and walked slowly into the building as if she was five minutes early as opposed to five minutes late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise it wont be as academic from here on in. I study classics so write what you know!  
> Update soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Yennefer thought she had successfully sauntered into the classroom with enough confidence to go mostly unnoticed. The woman behind the desk at the front didn’t even bother to look up from her paperwork. She found this slightly unnerving as she was used to being noticed, but at least she hadn’t managed to get herself on the wrong side of yet another professor before term had even really begun. She kept looking curiously at the woman in the silk shirt as she fumbled in her bag to get a notebook and a pen, but her movements halted, notebook half way to the desk, when the woman’s head lifted violently and she suddenly found her self pinned to the spot by blue eyes. She tried to take in the face surrounding them without breaking contact, and the woman looked…angry. Her lip was slightly snarled and her eyes narrow. Very quickly, though, her eyes widened and her eyebrows flicked, her face changing from anger to what Yennefer could only guess was confusion, and slight panic. This staring contest had been going on far too long. Who was staring at who? Yennefer had started out thinking it was the Professor staring at her, but now she wasn’t too sure. Her train of rambling thought was cut short, however, when blue tore away from violet with a slight shake of the head. Yennefer blinked a few times feeling like a camera had just flashed in her eyes, and busied herself with completing her interrupted movements and getting her notebook ready for notes. She heard rustling from the front while she was trying to remember the date and when the woman started to speak, she instinctively raised her head to watch and was met with a sight even more distracting than the eyes. Surely the professor must have known, when she got dressed that morning, that wearing a pencil skirt and 4-inch heels would do nothing but ensure that no-one would pay any attention to the class. Yennefer resigned herself to learning nothing that morning, and sat back to watch.  
**  
Tissaia returned to her rooms that night at 9pm, exhausted and completely done with anyone under the age of 25. Or over the age of 25, for that matter; a colleague of hers had barged in to her office while she was trying to eat her lunch, and had talked for a full hour about his student’s lack of appreciation for Cicero. She had just nodded, her eyes occasionally flicking to her bookshelf, where she had three preview copies of her soon-to-be published book denouncing Cicero, in an attempt to make him also glance that way in sympathy. As he was quoting large chunks of the Catilinarian speeches at her, she was thinking violet, and the way she could feel the girl’s eyes on her as she gave her lecture. She hadn’t looked in that direction again until students were starting to leave, and she caught dessert boots and skinny jeans walking out the door, taking a cigarette out of a packet. The guy didn’t leave until she did, following her out into the hallway as she locked her office and walking her to her next class. He would have followed her into the room, if she hadn’t cut off his insinuation they could share a room during the upcoming classics trip to Rome with a not altogether good-natured ‘fuck off, Vilgefortz’.  
Tissaia sank into her armchair, kicking her shoes off and curling her feet up under herself. She glanced down lazily at the shoes, glad she had worn ones with a shorter heel than usual, her feet were killing even with that small mercy. A friend had once mentioned to her that it was, in fact, possible to buy flat shoes, but she had just laughed. She was already a woman in a man’s world, she’d be damned if she was going to be short as well. She scrambled in her satchel for the folder entitled ‘Rome 2020’ and flicked to the page with the hotel room designations, thankful she was in charge of the logistics and could place Vilgefortz as physically far away from her as possible. She found his name in the box for the room next to hers. She must have forgotten over the summer how much she disliked him. She glanced over the list, looking for the room furthest from hers, and decided that since she was in room 412, room 109 was probably a fair distance away. Just as she was rubbing out the name of the boy who had been assigned that room she realised that it would perhaps not be her wisest decision to place that man on a floor full of girls and boys in their early twenties, who no-doubt had sense but were probably a little too eager to please. She thought for a moment, tapping the end of her pencil against her lip. Her mind drifted to violet eyes again, but she dragged it back and focused on the problem. She would have to keep him away from them, which left only one option, placing herself in the first-floor room. She concocted some fake excuse in her head about making sure the students were safe – and besides, she has a bad ankle, didn’t they know, and stairs aggravate it- and placed her own name in room 109, and the boy in with a classmate. He’ll never know he almost had a room to himself and the freedom to do whatever a twenty-something boy could do, which didn’t bear thinking about. She tipped her head back on the armchair, pleased with successful rearranging, and shut her eyes. After a few moments she made moves to get ready for bed. She didn’t usually turn in before midnight but today had been particularly tiring. She looked down at the list on her lap once more, and her eyes landed on who she would be next door to. There, in her own handwriting, was Vengerberg, Yennefer. She’d somehow missed that, in her haste. She considered idly moving Yennefer to another room to avoid more…staring, but she decided to leave it as it was, for now. After all, the trip was a month away and she could change it anytime up until they arrived at the hotel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any comments at all on the previous chapter was a surprise - I was honestly so chuffed, smiling like an idiot. Thanks!


	3. Chapter 3

'And thats why, in Archaic lyric poetry, men mostly wrote of their passions for other men not due to a widespread inherent homosexuality, but because they didnt consider women worthy of their company, let alone worthy of their love'. Tissaia looked around the class as everyone scribbled notes and then at the clock, noting it was time to wrap up.  
'Questions?'  
Nobody rose their hand so she returned to the computer at the desk to close down the slides of poetry she'd used throughout the lecture, talking as she went.  
'In that case, I'll see you all at 5am Monday morning at the airport, remember to bring...'  
She was cut off by a voice that had yet to speak in this class. She looked at the source of the interruption, trying to look nonchalant. For the last 4 weeks Tissaia had managed to mostly avoid looking at Yennefer Vengerberg, and the girl had graciously made this easier by not speaking, ever. But now she was talking, and seemed to be doing so intellegently. Tissaia was now looking at what she had only managed to catch glimpses of in the last month, afraid to get caught in another staring contest that would derail her whole lecture. Yennefers dark hair was tumbling onto her shoulders in soft curls. Her skin was visible where her shirt neglected to be buttoned up, and as Yennifer was leaning forward onto her desk to ask her question very little was being left to the imagination. Tissaia felt her mouth going dry as she tore her eyes up to Yennefers face, which was gorgeous and looking at her so expectantly it was almost too much.  
'Professor?' Yennefer said, still looking at Tissaia like the woman knew the answer to all of life's questions, her violet eyes wide.  
Tissaia snapped out of her reverie, and realised it was now her job to seem knowledgeable and answer the question asked of her. She pieced together the fragments of the querie that her muddled brain had managed to catch, and replied.  
'You're asking if women did a similar thing in Archaic Greece', Tissaia ventured, more as a statement than a question. Yennefer nodded. Tissaia walked around to the front of the desk and sat on1 the edge, thinking how to answer. Eventually she said 'no', waiting for the inevetable reply.  
'But what about Sappho?' asked a girl at the far side of the room that she couldn't remember the name of. Tissaia resisted the urge to roll her eyes, ready to pounce with her well rehearsed reply.  
'Who here has read the fragments of poetey that we have from Sappho?' she asked the room.  
Everyome put up their hand.  
'Can anyone name me a fragement within which she offers any respect to the object of her affection?'  
Tissaia pointedly looked at the girl who had brought up Sappho with such confidence, but it was Yennefer who answered after a period of silence.  
'None'.  
Tissaia was shocked. Never in her ten years of teaching had anyone ever given that answer. Yennefer looked delighted, and she was biting her bottom lip in what Tissaia could only imagine what was actual glee. She was still marvelling at this turn in events when the girl at the bac spoke again.  
'But Sappho speaks of love for these women, in almost every poem. In the Ode to Aphrodite, for instance'.  
Tissaia opened her mouth to reply, but Yennefer cut in with a snort.  
'That poem is literally the worst you could have chosen. Sappho doesn' t love that woman, shes asking Aphrodite help to cosmically drug her. As Aphrodite has helped before to do to some other poor girl. She has no interest in that girl's well being. Sappho just wants to fuck her, and she wants aphrodite to force consent'.  
Tissaia almost laughed at the look in the girl at the back's face. Yennefer had turned to look where she was speaking, so Tissaia could look at her for a moment, even if it was only her back. Yennefer, however, wasn't finished.  
'Not to mention the mistranslation of the word 'love' in the first place. The word Sappho wrote in Greek was φίλει which a purer translation of would actually be... '  
Tissaia cut her off there.  
'Thank you, everyone, but we've ran well over time and I'm sure some of you have other classes to get to. I expext to see you all Monday. On time!' And with that, everyone started packing up, pulling faces at eachother in response to the whole slightly-aggressive affair that had just played out infront of them. Tissaia turned back to her desk and started packing up too. She turned to leave and found herself once again trapped in violet eyes. 'For fucks sake' , she thought. Yennefer was standing at the front of the classroom, and in turning round Tissaia had nearly ran into her. As a result, they were now standing less than a foot apart.  
'I guess I'll see you Monday morning, then', Yennefer said, her eyes flicking down Tissaia's lips and back again.  
Tissaia didn't know what was throwing her more; her close proximity to Yennefer, or the fact the girl had decided this was a sentence worthwhile hanging back to say. She strangled out an 'indeed', and tried her best to seem unaffected.  
Yennefer smirked, and took a step back.  
'ἔρρωσο' Yennefer said, then she left. Tissaia watched her leave, her brain not functioning at nearly high enough a level to remind her that she shouldn't be staring at a students ass, even if that student was suprisingly fluent in ancient Greek.  
'Yea... Goodbye' she replied, to an empty room.  
She was, she realised rather belatedly, fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I accidentally lied, it has yet to get less academic. Maybe the next chapter, but who knows?!?!?!


	4. Chapter 4

Yennefer hurried into the airport at 5am on the dot, dragging a suitcase behind her that was so large that if push came to shove, she could sleep in it. Lapdance had once again neglected to wake her up fully on time. She had rolled around in bed before eventually dragging herself out at 3.50, a time Yennefer traditionally considered getting into bed rather than getting out of it.  
She found her way to the baggage drop off, which was mainly empty except from a group of ill-dressed, exausted looking youths. Some were leaning against their cases on the floor, others seemed to be asleep standing up. As she drew closer she noticed several lecturers from the classics department standing a little ways away, looking decidedly more like functioning grown ups. A couple were wearing tweed jackets, which she was sure all classicists must be issued with at the same time as their doctorates considering they all seemed to own them. Proffesor de Vries didn't seem to be among them, much to Yennefer's dismay. She had resounded on this trip to wow the older woman with her academic prowess, which she knew was unlikely to happen but she was going to try bloody hard. When Yennefer had spoken out in class about one of her favourite subjects, how Sappho was infact an actual rapist, the proffesor had looked at her with a mixture of suprise and respect. Okay, so maybe Yennefer had imagined the 'respect' part, but there was definitely suprise. It had made Yennefer feel warm and fuzzy, and it was a lot when she was ready flustered from being in the same room as the woman to begin with. For weeks Yennefer had been developing a crush on her proffesor. She wasn't sure if it was the pencil skirts, the face, the voice, the strictness, or the sheer intellect that was making her a little obsessed, but it was happening none the less.  
Yennefer looked around for the woman in question, and eventually found her standing over at a check-in point quite far away. At least Yennefer assumed it was her gesticulating wildly at the person behind the desk.  
Something poked her in the ribs and she turned, annoyed, to find Jaskier grinning at her wildly from behind a pair of Rayban sunglasses. Yennefer had hazarded a tentative friendship with the boy. Well, it was tentative only on her side. Jaskier seemed convinced they were now best friends. Yennefer pushed his hand away from her waist and went back to staring at the professor.  
'Morning!' Jaskier said, throwing his arm around Yennefer's shoulders and following the line of her gaze. 'Starting the staring early,huh? I applaud your commitment to lechery'.  
Yennefer glanced sideway at him, noticing something protruding from his back.  
'Are you bringing a guitar to Rome?' she asked, pointedly avoiding his question.  
'Yep,' he replied, moving away from her and slinging the case off of his shoulder, threatening to show her what was inside. 'Do you want to see'?  
'I can honestly say I have never wanted to see anything less' she replied, noticing with glee that the object of her affection was returning to the group.  
Tissaia stalked back to the group with a pile of papers in her arms, looking harried. She was dressed only slightly differently than she did at the university, skinny jeans replacing the skirt. Yennefer appreciated that the 5 inch fuck-me heels were still a feature. For purely academic reasons obviosuly. Tissaia muttered something to another proffesor then turned to the motley crew of half-dead students.  
'Here are your boarding passes. After you've checked in your luggage and gone through security, wait before going any further and we' ll do a head count before you have a few hours to yourself. The flight is at 7.30, I trust all of you know how to use an information board and I expect you all to be at the appropriate gate by 7. If you're not, I won't try very hard to find you'.  
Tissaia handed the passes to collegue who started calling out names, and she glanced at Yennefer before turning away to check her luggage in. Jaskier followed her to the desk and through security like a faithful puppy, even taking the place at the trays next to her, flicking his belt at her when he removed it. She grabbed the belt off him and put it in her tray before walking through the scanner, and made him beg for a few minutes at the other side before she gave it back. The next time she saw Tissaia, she was doing a head count, rather hilariously tapping each person on the head as she counted, signalling they could leave, like one would with toddlers. Tissaia didn't look at Yennefer when she tapped her forehead, but Yennefer looked at her. How did she manage to look so perfect before any decent person was out of bed? Her forehead tingled where it had been touched, and she was still a little dazed when Jaskier grabbed her hand and dragged her all the way to the Wetherspoons pub. They both had a full breakfast and a pint. Jaskier had reasoned you HAD to drink in an airport nomatter what the time, and Yennefer hadn't argued. She spent the next hour or so flipping between pretending to be listening to the boy, and scanning the surrounding area for Tissaia. They traipsed to gate b17 at 6.50, and found themselves to be the first there. They slouched down on the plastic airport seats and Yennefer weighed up the pros and cons of leaning on Yaskier's shoulder and closing her eyes. Pros: she got to close her eyes. Cons: he might take this as a sign she was a proponent of this friendship. She threw caution to the wind, and leant her head sideways onto him, her eyes automatically sliding shut.  
Next she knew, her nose was being booped. She swatted at whatever was doing it, and came round to the noise of people moving and chatting. She opened her eyes, and saw people queueing.  
'You fell asleep,' Jaskier pointed out.  
'You must have that effect on women,' Yennefer shot back. She stretched, rolling her neck.  
'I guess we had better join this line'.  
Yennefer agreed with little enthusiasm, her body still wishing to go back to sleep, dragging herself to standing and wandering to the back of the queue. Jaskier followed. As the line went down she looked around for Tissaia, a habit she realised ahe should probably work on stopping or this trip was going to be a very long one, but couldn't see her.  
Passport and boarding pass checked, they walked down the gangway. Jaskier was saying something about the fact he found this walk the scariest bit but Yennefers mind was already in her seat, falling back asleep. Upon entering the plane, a member of the cabin crew said goodmorning with an almost convincing smile, and offered her a newspaper. Yennifer scanned them blankly and picked the Financial Times just because it was printed on pink paper, and trapsed through to the plane. She searched for their seats - she had put herself in control of both tickets after Jaskier lost it twice in their booth in the pub - and found them over the wing. She was against the window (sleep!), Jaskier next to her, and an empty seat next to him. They settled down and Yennefer was just positioning her coat folded up behind her head to try and make the fusulage more comfortable for her nap, when someone sat down at the end of the row. She looked over curiously to see who it was, and saw Tissaia sit down, staring at her phone as she did.  
Yennefer whipped her head round and forcibly stared out of her window, at the tarmac.  
She suddenly wasn't tired at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I've let you all down by imparting none of my (limited) knowledge of classics within this chapter. But hey, at least there was beer at 5am?


	5. Chapter 5

Tissaia walked onto the plane staring at her phone, trying to formulate a reply to an email from her publishers. She waved away the newspapers at the door and rolled her eyes at the incompetence of every person holding up her walk down the aisle. She was still trying to write the perfectly worded email when she found her seat and sat down, not even bothering to look at who else was in the row. She had asked the woman behind the desk at check-in to seat her as far away from everyone else in their group. It quickly transpired, however, that she should have double checked that the request had been handled properly, for when she finally finished writing and looked up from her phone she found Pankratz next to her. She quietly asked God what she did to deserve this, and smiled tersley at him before staring at her phone again. Pankratz started wittering on about how he didn't need to learn Italian because he spoke the universal language of love to whatever poor soul was going to be trapped between him and the thin air at 30,000 feet for 3 hours. Then a suspicially familiar voice replied 'Fuck off, Jaskier'.  
Tissaia's thumb stilled over her phone. The only thing in between her and a plane-journey of awkward glances and elbow touching with Yennefer was the boy, and she found herself actually a little thankful he was there. Well, as thankful as she could be for a boy who was wearing sunglasses inside a plane.

An air steward with an extremely well groomed beard came to check their seatbelts and told her to turn her phone off. She did as she was told but was painfully aware that she was now just sitting staring at the back of the seat in front of her. Perhaps she should pretend to be asleep? She watched the safety briefing with mild interest, happy for something to look at, and tried her best to ignore the to-and-fro between the pair next to her. The plane started to move, and Tissaia leant her head back against her seat, willing her hands to stay relaxed. She wasn’t afraid of flying but sometimes her hands forgot during take-off and gripped the armrests as if they could drag the plane into the sky. It was a windy day, and the plane kicked about a bit when it left the runway. Pankratz was shaking his legs up and down incessantly, and Tissaia watched his hands twist in his lap out of the corner of her eye. Yennefer reached over and gently stilled his knee, and Tissaia felt him relax. She, however, tensed, and was suddenly struck with an overwhelming desire to throw Pankratz out of the plane. She should have been glad that they had each other to stare at, leaving Tissaia blissfully free to live her best violet-free life. But she was not, she was furious for no real discernible reason. She wondered for a moment if she was jealous, but that couldn’t possibly be true. The day she was jealous of a gangly male youth was the day she would retire to her home and never leave again.   
The plane levelled out, and the seatbelt sign flickered off. Tissaia glanced to her right and saw that Yennefer had retrieved her hand, although the boy was looking a whiter shade of pale. She rolled her eyes at herself and looked through her handbag for anything she could do. Unfortunately, all she had in there, other than her wallet and her phone, was a bottle of over-priced airport water and a copy of her own book on Cicero that she had brought to give to Vilgefortz. The trip paperwork was in her luggage in the bins overhead. She sighed and took the book out of her bag. She opened it at the first page and started reading, telling herself she could at least check for any printing mistakes that would need reporting to the publisher.   
She was on the third chapter when she was interrupted by a load rustling from the seats next to her. She glanced over, and saw Yennefer fighting with what looked like a copy of the financial times, and Pankratz batting away the paper every time the broadsheet hit him in the face.  
‘You picked it just because it was pink, didn’t you’, she heard Pankratz say to Yennefer. Yennefer replied by elbowing him in the side, and he leant away to try and avoid it, knocking right into Tissaia and causing her to drop her book into the aisle.   
‘Sorry, professor,’ he turned and said, before facing back to Yennefer. Tissaia grabbed her book from the floor, repositioned herself in her seat, and tried to return to reading. She managed two lines before Pankratz spoke again. This time, she kept looking at the book.  
‘You know it’s in Italian, right?’ he asked Yennefer. Tissaia presumed he was talking about the newspaper.   
‘And here I specifically asked for it in German,’ Yennefer replied. Tissaia noticed that she had managed to fold the paper in such a way that she could now actually read it. Pankratz shifted in his seat, and Tissaia glanced over to see him looking closer at the writing.   
‘No, that’s definitely not German,’ he said, in what seemed to be seriousness. Tissaia could feel Yennefer roll her eyes. ‘Is there any language you don’t know?’ Pankratz continued. Tissaia had actually been wondering a similar thing.   
‘I don’t know Italian,’ Yennefer said.   
‘Are you just pretending to read then?’ Pankratz asked back.  
‘No. It’s similar enough to Latin that you can figure it out’.  
‘That’s nothing like Latin. They use a different alphabet,’ the boy reasoned. He was thinking of Greek. Yennefer ignored that part and pointed to some words on the page.   
‘See here, it says gli anni dell’impero? That means ‘the empire years’, right. Which word do you think means empire?’ Yennefer said. Tissaia smiled to herself, still pretending to be reading her book.   
‘Dell’impero?’ the Pankratz hazarded.   
‘Yea, well done! And which word do you think means years?’ Yennefer continued.   
‘Anni?’   
Yennefer told him he was correct, to which he whooped, and she scribbled something on the paper with a pen Tissaia hadn’t noticed before.   
‘So this is the same phrase in Latin, you recognise the words?’ Yennefer said, somehow managing to sound only slightly condescending. Tissaia did a quick translation in her head and came up with anno imperii.   
‘Why is it so much shorter in Latin?’ he asked.   
Yennefer exhaled, and rattled off a list of reasons, including the fact the Romans used more cases, and didn’t have a definite article. Pankratz didn’t reply to this part, Tissaia could feel him nodding like he understood but he didn’t ask anymore questions. Yennefer must have returned to reading her paper in peace, because no more of consequence was said until the pilot informed them they were preparing to land, and the seatbelt sign came back on. Was Tissaia a little bit turned on from listening to Yennefer teach someone the roots of romantic language words? Yes. Would she ever admit this to anyone? Absolutely not. She was glad when the plane landed, and she could congratulate herself for managing to not stare at a certain student for the whole trip. Now she just had to replicate that achievement for the next 5 days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I loved Latin. It did not love me, and therefore we no longer speak.


	6. Chapter 6

Yennefer looked up at their hotel from the street below, glad to be here at last. Managing to get 30 or so students and a handful of staff members from Fiumicino Aeroporto to the centre of Rome, and then to their hotel, had been a trial. Yennefer had just followed at the back, trusting that someone would guide the herd in the right direction. She was certain a few people had been lost along the way, but they were adults and had the hotel address so she was sure they would manage. The hotel, the Albergo del Senato, looked out towards the Pantheon and was in better shape than the buildings around it. Jaskier whistled under his breath, taking his sunglasses off to look at it.  
‘It’s the same colour as your newspaper,’ he said.  
Yennefer didn’t dignify that with an answer. Professor de Vries and another lecturer had instructed them to wait outside while they went in and sorted everything. Yennefer looked around at the group and decided they must look incredibly foreign. Most of them were so pale they were almost glowing – one boy seemed to have sunburn on his nose already. She took a strange pride in never being pale, she liked looking like she belonged in hot places. Tissaia came back out and gathered everyone ‘round.  
‘Okay, so I have everyone’s keys. I’m going to call you all one by one and give you your respective key. If you’re sharing a room, I’ll call both names’, she said. Yennefer watched as Tissaia started reading names off a bit of paper, and students went forward then into the hotel. Jaskier was called first, and dramatically bowed at Yennefer before he left to find his room. She pretended she hadn’t noticed. Yennefer almost missed her name being called, she got distracted by a couple of pigeons that were fighting over what seemed to be a leaf. She was backing the one with darker feathers and one leg to win. Tissaia saying her name was one of the best things in the world. The first time it had happened, at the beginning of their second class, Yennefer had almost forgotten to reply. She was too busy delighting in the fact the woman knew her name. Yennefer stepped forwards with her luggage and took her key. She tried to catch Tissaia’s eye as she did, but to no avail The professor had already moved on to the next name. Yennefer said a quiet ‘thanks’ and headed into the building, forgetting all about the pigeon tug-o-war she had been so invested in two minutes ago. The hotel’s lobby was characteristically full of replicas of Roman marbles, but more importantly it was air conditioned. She pulled her suitcase over to the lifts on the left, and checked the number on her key. 110. The li ft arrived and she entered, taking it one floor up and starting the hunt for her room. She found it at the far end of a corridor, only one door away from a fire escape. She marvelled for a moment that the hotel had fire escapes at all, Italy wasn’t exactly known for it’s stringent building codes. She let herself into her room with an actual key (so much more satisfying than a key-card) and looked around the room. It was sizable and looked far more expensive than anywhere she would have chosen to stay. There was a window that looked right out on to the Pantheon, and a bathroom with a bathtub big enough to float in. She threw herself face down on the bed and inhaled the smell of the clean sheets. In the darkness, she mulled over the trip here. The plane ride had been fine, she thought. She had successfully shown her intelligence enough but not too much. Even if she had realised a moment too late that, when unfolded, her newspaper was bigger than her. And in Italian. But she pulled it back somewhat. That is, if the professor was even listening to anything she said at all. She seemed to be engrossed in a book that she herself had written. Yennefer didn’t question this too much though. She was sure that if she had a book published, she would read it everywhere. On park benches, on the tube, while walking down the street, while on a date. There was nowhere that wouldn’t qualify. Suddenly, her mood changed. What if she had been annoying, rather than impressive. What if Tissaia thought her just another student that thinks they know something and found her incredibly annoying. That would explain the professor’s cold behaviour towards her. Yennefer groaned, and tried to pull her brain back out of the chasm of self-pity. She needed a cigarette, and the only upside of Italy’s lax attitudes towards vice was that it was 3 euros a packet here. That and the lack of wine tax, both were very advantageous for Yennefer.  
She looked at her phone and saw several messages from Jaskier. She opened them and found 10 selfies of himself in various places around his room. She told him her room number and waited for him to come down. They had an hour before they were expected in one of the conference rooms in the hotel for an introductory lecture. She hated introductory lectures, so she fully intended to spend the hour before sitting in the sun, drinking wine and smoking her way to an early grave. There was a jaunty chap at the door, and she checked she had her phone and room key before answering it. Jaskier was leaning against her doorframe in an imitation of suavity, a flower in his hand.  
‘I stole this especially for you’, he said, holding it out to her. It was a silk rose. She took it, and held it to her nose.  
‘It smells amazing,’ she said, before hitting him with it. ‘You’re too kind’.  
She left the room, letting the door lock shut behind her.  
‘We’re going to go find wine and cigarettes,’ she said, starting to walk towards the stairs. Yennefer heard a voice firing off rapid Italian aggressively, and Tissaia appeared at the end of the corridor dragging a case with one hand and holding her phone to her ear with the other. She didn’t look pleased. She continued speaking quickly, not noticing Yennefer and Jaskier until they stood aside to let her past. She glanced up, first at him, then her, then down to the rose in Yennefer’s hand, and continued her way down the corridor. Yennefer followed her with her eyes, and watched as Tissaia made her way to the door at the very end.  
‘I can feel her anger from here’, Jaskier whispered, watching the professor as well.  
Yennefer swatted at him and turned to keep walking.  
‘To the wine!’ Jaskier shouted, pointing ahead like a sailor who has spotted land. Yennefer heard Tissaia’s door opening and shutting behind them, and followed Jaskier’s lead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Italy. It felt odd to write about it functioning normally while nothing at all is normal there at the moment.


	7. Chapter 7

Tissaia headed down to the conference room five minutes before the introductory lecture was due to start. She wasn't speaking in it, except for an introduction, and she'd asked Vilgefortz to meet the guest lecturer who would be giving the main part of the talk. She was dreading having to spend the next three hours in enforced socialisation- after the lecture she had to eat dinner with them all, and because it was the first night it was expected of her to have a drink at the bar afterwords. Her mood hadn't been great all day, starting with having to be awake at three AM, compounded by spending her entire flight on edge, and finishing with discovering that she had forgotten to move Yennefer out of the room next to hers. And naturally, because the universe was obviously conspiring against her this day, she had ran into Yennefer and that idiotic boy in the hallway, and seen that idiotic rose. The rose that had 100% not made her mood even worse. She had managed to convince herself that she wasn't jealous, she was just annoyed on behalf of Yennefer that Pankratz thought he could buy her with, of all things, a fake rose. What was he hoping to achieve? To buy affection? Sex? Tissaia shut that thought down quickly before she started imagining things she rather die than see.  
By the time she made it to the conference room, the huge table was surrounded by students chatting to eachother and laughing. She sighed, and walked towards where the lecturers were sat at the head of the table. Someone had set up a laptop and a projector, and the words 'welcome to Rome' were being shone on the wall. She greeted a few of her collegues and glanced around the room. Their guest wasn't here yet, not that Tissaia was suprised. Clocks meant very little to him. Yennefer and her puppy were sitting around half way down the table, listening to a third student talk. As if she could feel Tissaia's gaze, Yennefer looked up and caught her eyes before quickly going back to her group.  
A noise at the back of the room made everyone look in that direction. The door flew open, and a figure filled the doorframe. He looked around, unimpressed, and walked through the room to join Tissaia. The eyes of the whole room followed him. She rolled her eyes.  
'Geralt,' Tissaia said. 'I see you finally bothered to grace us with your presence'.  
Geralt looked at her, and said 'hmm', before standing against the wall. Tissaia used the silence that his arrival had brought as an opportunity to start talking.  
'Good afternoon,' she said, trying to grab everyone's attention. Students lazily moved their gaze from the silver-haired man to her, looking slightly dazed. She suppressed another eye roll, lest she risk eye strain, and continued.  
Tissaia gave a short overview of their schedule for the next five days, and their learning objectives for the trip. She caught Yennefer and others looking behind her at Geralt with curiosity more than once, but resisted the urge to bang something against the desk to bring their attention back to her. Eventually, she got bored of being ignored and passed the torch to Geralt.  
'Everyone, this is Mr. Bellegarde, he'll be joing us for the trip and showing us around Rome. He' s here to tell you a bit about himself, and explain his role on this trip'.  
She stepped back, and Geralt stepped forward. She looked around for an empty seat and noticed with dismay that the only one left was next to Yennefer. She really didnt want to stand at the side of the room for however many years it took Geralt to grunt out 3 or 4 words, so she walked round and sat down.  
Geralt was talking about his job as a glorified treasure hunter for anyone who paid enough (although he didn't put it quite like that), but Tissaia wasn't listening. She could feel the heat from Yennefer's body next to hers. She could smell the woman, like lilac and... Gooseberries? Tissaia hadn't smelt gooseberries since she'd played in her grandmother's garden. She had though them sour then, but her opinion seemed to have changed. Tissaia was leant back in her chair, and Yennefer was leant forward with her elbows on the table. Tissaia looked at Yennefer's profile as she watched Geralt talk. Her violet eyes looked slightly glazed, and Tissaia took slight pleasure in the fact she wasn't finding Geralt exactly captivating.  
Suddenly, she felt something knock into her knee. She looked down, and saw that Yennefers left leg was resting against her right. She felt her heart in her throat. Yennefer wasn't showing any signs of being aware of what she was doing, she was stilll looking to the front with unfocused eyes. Maybe she thought Tissaia's leg was the table leg? The heat of Yennefers knee was burning through the fabric of Tissaia's jeans, and Tissaia was quickly forgetting where she was. Yennefer moved her knee away and Tissaia quickly missed the contact, but then Yennefer bumped her knee into her again. Tissaia instinctively did the same back before she could stop herself, and quickly regretted it. Staring was one thing, but footsie under a table was a whole knew level of confusing behavior and Tissaia was not willing to take part in it. A few minutes later, Yennefer knocked her knee again. Tissaia stared pointedly ahead, determined to put an end to this now. Geralt was showing his standard slideshow of things he'd found, and dangerous things he'd done to get them, with a minimal commentary explaining the images. She was certain she had a handle on the situation when her treacherous leg betrayed her and returned Yennefers nudge. She swore mentally. This time Yennefer reciprocated almost instantly, and Tissaia didn't even make an effort to restrain herself from doing the same. After what felt like a life time of traded touches, she was pulled out of her bubble by the sound of movement all around her. Yennefers leg had come to rest against hers once again, and Tissaia didn't pull away. Geralt had apparently finished talking and was now standing staring at the door, as Vilgefortz was talking at him. Students were beginning to stand up and head out into the hallway. Pankratz loudly went 'hmmm', and Yennefer laughed. Then she looked round to Tissaia and smirked before standing up and leaving. Soon, Tissaia was the only one left sitting at the table. Geralt coughed, dragging her back to the present. She stood up, and walked over to join her colleagues. There was still two hours of this to go before she could hide in her room. She suppressed another eye roll, and attempted to join the lecturers conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Geralt arrives!  
> Next chapter there will be interaction that actually involves words, I promise!


	8. Chapter 8

Yennefer was on auto-pilot the whole way through dinner. At one point Jaskier asked her to pass the dish of carrots, and she handed him her wine, which was decidedly un-Yennefer like behaviour. Well, the wine part was; the not the not-listening-to-Jaskier part was completely in character. She knew she was spacing out, but frankly she didn’t care. She hadn’t meant to knock her knee against Tissaia’s. Her brain had been clouded by the woman’s perfume since she had sat down, and Yennefer’s leg had sort of fallen sideways while she wasn’t paying attention. When she noticed that whatever her leg was resting on was warm, and that that warmth was coming from Tissaia, she also noticed that Tissaia hadn’t pulled away. She found this very interesting. Yennefer stole a glance at the professor beside her and found Tissaia just leaning back in her chair, staring into the middle distance. Yennefer tried to calm her heart rate, and considered what to do next. As far as she could see, there was two explanations for why Tissaia hadn’t moved her leg away. One – Tissaia was just being polite and didn’t want to draw attention, and cause embarrassment. Two – and this was far less likely - she was keeping it there on purpose. Yennefer reluctantly dragged her knee away. Tissaia shifted a tiny amount next to her, and Yennefer assumed it was in relief. She tried to concentrate on what the massive man at the front was saying. He had a very nice face, objectively. He was wearing leather trousers even though it was around thirty degrees outside, and Yennefer appreciated his commitment to the look. She would from here on in refer to him as Narcissus. She started to wonder idly if he dyed his hair that silver colour, or if it was naturally like that, and she accidentally relaxed too much again. Her leg fell once more against Tissaia’s. Fuck. She quickly snatched it back, hoping that somehow the contact had gone completely unnoticed. God, the Professor was going to think she was hitting on her or something, and then she was going to think that Yennefer was creepy, or foolish, and she’d rather die than be thought of like that. Yennefer was deeply considering catching the next flight back to England and choosing a new degree path at the university that in no way crossed over with any situation that could involve Tissaia, when she felt a knock against her own knee. Were they playing footsie now? Did this mean Tissaia didn’t consider her a fool? Was this now her life? Yennefer mustered her courage and nudged back.  
And so it continued for the rest of Narcissus’ lecture. Yennefer kept replaying the whole event in her head throughout dinner, causing the carrot-wine incident to occur and making terrible company. When everyone stood up from dinner and started making their way through to the hotel bar, Jaskier evidently decided he’d had enough and wandered off to talk to someone who would at least pretend to engage with him. Yennefer let herself be swept along with the group to the bar, and twenty minutes later found herself sitting at a table in the corner by herself with a glass of wine, looking at her phone. She wasn’t shy, she could easily go and join any of the small groups of students scattered around, she simply didn’t want to. After many, many, replays in her mind, the events at the lecture were starting to warp into something less beautiful than it had seemed at the time. She had started entertaining all sorts of terrible and dismal ideas, and so wanted to mope over her wine until she could snap out of her self-pity and go to bed not too miserable. Today had been an emotional rollercoaster, and she was quite ready to get the fuck off that ride.  
Yennefer was watching a video of a kitten knocking over books to the tune of ‘wrecking ball’ on repeat when a shadow fell on her phone. She looked up and found the source of all her miseries and joys standing over her. Tiredness made her dramatic. Yennefer cocked her head and looked at Tissaia with curiosity. She had drunk enough wine within the last 4 or 5 hours to dampen her ability to observe social normalities, and as a result her eyes were freely roaming over the professor. Her body, tightly dressed in the same skinny jeans and a different shirt from earlier, looked good and was currently very, very close to Yennefer.  
‘I must admit, I wouldn’t have imagined you as one for drinking alone,’ Tissaia stated. Yennefer looked back up at the woman’s face.  
‘Jaskier has abandoned me for the prospect of someone who actually wants to listen to him. And everyone else has an exceedingly annoying voice right now,’ Yennefer replied, as if this explained everything. Tissaia frowned slightly.  
‘I apologise if my voice offends you,’ she said, slightly clipped.  
Yennefer internally groaned, and quickly tried to scrape back whatever small amount of rapport they had just developed.  
‘Your voice is the only one that isn’t offending me right now’.  
Tissaia looked thoughtful at this.  
‘I’ll inform Geralt that you thoroughly enjoyed his lecture then, shall I?’ Tissaia ventured, surprising Yennefer with a sense of humour she wasn’t aware the woman possessed. Who was Geralt? Oh. Narcissus.  
‘I honestly didn’t hear a single word he said,’ Yennefer replied without thinking. She scolded herself for having absolutely no chill, belatedly adding ‘did I see a picture of a deer being butchered at one point, or did I imagine that?’  
Yennefer looked up at Tissaia, for the answer to her question, and found the woman biting her lip, lost in thought. Yennefer was just about to say something else, though in all honesty she had no idea which direction she wanted to take the conversation in, when the man in question appeared behind Tissaia. He handed the professor a drink, and gazed down at Yennefer.  
‘Geralt, this is Yennefer Vengerberg,’ Tissaia said by way of introduction. Geralt didn’t say anything, or smile. He just kept looking down at her and Yennefer didn’t really know how to feel about this blatant observance of her face. Tissaia wrapped a hand around Geralt’s arm, and tugged his attention to her.  
‘Let’s go sit down,’ Tissaia said, and she started pulling him away by the arm. ‘Goodnight, Miss Vengerberg’.  
Yennefer watched helplessly as the woman she’d been letting her emotions fluxuate wildly over left with one of the most beautiful men she’d ever seen, and left her sitting alone. Sometimes she wished she was straight.  
Goodnight, Miss Vengerberg. Pfft. Miss Vengerberg downed the rest of her wine in one, and went to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cat video is real, I used to be obsessed with it.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsG_K9m96j4


	9. Chapter 9

Tissaia was woken not by her travel alarm clock, but by the muffled sound of music seeping through the wall behind her head. Well, maybe music was a bit too strong of a word. She concentrated on the words, and someone was an outlaw? Quick on the draw?  
And then the headache hit. She groaned, and threw an arm over her face to block out the sunshine that was battling its way through the curtains. She had been foolish to think she could keep up with Geralt's drinking. She had looked around after their first drink to where Yennefer had been sitting, but the table was vacated. After that her glass never seemed to be empty, and she hadn't complained. They hadn't even spoken, just sat at the bar in mutual silence, watching the people around them. Every so often a student would walk towards them, with their eyes trained on Geralt and their mouths about to speak, but then they would see Tissaia next to him and veer away, eyes glued to the floor.  
Tissaia and Geralt had come to an arrangement years ago on the first trip he had been involved in, which had been in Greece, that they would sit together during enforced socialisation since they both had the same violent distain for it.  
A friendship based on necessity and very little else had grown over time, and now they gravitated towards each other naturally, each giving the other an excuse to not talk to anyone.  
Geralt used her to ward off smitten students, and Tissaia used him too keep basically everyone away. She had not forseen a day where he would ward off a student that was interested in her. That's if Yennefer was interested in her. And that was a very big if.

Tissaia groaned again. The "music" was still playing, and now someone was getting a lapdance for free. Was that wall made of cardboard? She suddenly realised that it must be Yennefer's alarm she was hearing, and found herself not in the slightest bit suprised at the choice of song. She glanced at the clock, squinted until the hands were in focus, and read 6.30. Breakfast was at 8, and Tissaia desperately wanted to go back to sleep for an hour. Irregardless, she dragged herself out of her bed, and went about getting ready for the day. The bloody music was still playing through the wall. Yennefer couldn't possibly be sleeping through that, could she?

***  
Yennefer slept through her alarm for over 20 minutes. The song must have played 6 or 7 times at least by the time it roused her and she slapped her phone to stop it. It was 6.50, and if she was to get up now she'd be giving herself approximately a full hour longer to get ready than she would usually have. Her head felt suprisingly clear after drinking over a whole bottle of wine, and and she rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. There was a thump from the room next to hers, and Yennefer realised that there was no way she could let Tissaia think she wasn't an early riser. She didn't know why this particular character trait was one she felt she had to keep a secret from the other woman, but she suddenly felt very strongly about it. She could use the extra hour to look especially good today. It was very important she looked good for Rome. She really cared what Rome thought of her. Or at least she did if Rome was, infact, her professor and was called Tissaia de Vries. Yennefer could also, she reasoned, use part of the time to read up on the places they were visiting today so she could make series of educated, insightful, and completely spontanious comments on what they saw. And if this happened to impress a particular small woman in fuck me heels and distract said woman from the Greek God she called 'Geralt' , then all the better.  
With that all sorted out in her head, Yennefer sprang out of bed with vigour and practically skipped towards the shower, making sure to do so loudly so that Tissaia knew she was awake, like a proper functioning human.

***  
Tissaia was standing outside the building by 9.30, ignoring whatever asinine conversations the students and lecturers around her where involved in. She started to count heads but it became too difficult on her headache around halfway through, and decided that anyone who wasn't here by now would just have to amuse themselves for the day. Yennefer was standing over to the side, rejoined by Jaskier once more, and was animatedly saying something to a small group of students. Her voice was carrying, but Tissaia couldn't quite make out what she was saying. Or, at least, she couldn't make anything out until the words 'you can get this lapdance here for free' travelled across the crowd.  
Tissaia squinted at the group from behind her anti-hangover sunglasses, and nearly jumped out of her skin when Geralt leant slightly towards her and mumbled under his breath 'I'm an outlaw,' before he walked away and whistled to get everyones attention and start the day.  
Tissaia stared after him dumfounded. She was still stunned when everyone started to walk in the direction of the Colosseum and she was forced to bring herself back to the present. She wondered, as they crossed the street into the sun, what other great wonders this day would bring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of experiencing this song, heres a link-
> 
> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=I_uDcCZDrxg


	10. Chapter 10

The public areas of the Colosseum were crammed full of tourists who all seemed to be either taking selfies, or staring at their phones rather than the gladitorial arena around them. Yennefer looked up at them from where she walking, shielding the sun from her eyes with a hand. When they had arrived, Narcissus had led them past the queues, straight down a terrifying stone staircase, and then through what seemed to be a maze of brick walls. Yennefer knew, from her 15 minutes of research that morning and a basic working knowledge of Roman life that she became thousands of pounds in debt achieving, that they were underneath the wooden floor of the arena. Or rather, what used to be the floor. Now, the inner workings that had been hidden behind the scenes were open to the elements, giving Yennefer a great view of all the visitors resticted to the viewing platforms at the top. She was still looking up at them, watching them look down at her group, when she walked into someome who had come to an abrupt stop infront of her. The assulted person let out a squeal, and Yennefer automatically put her hands out to steady herself and the poor soul she'd battered in to. Her bearings recovered, Yennefer noticed she had walked into Tissaia. And worse than that she currently had her hands on the smaller woman's waist, and her brain didn't seem to see a reason to remove them. Yennefer's thoughts ran at a thousand miles an hour, noticing how Tissaia felt under her hands, and begging her arms to move away, and panicking what was going to happen next, and honestly still a little confused about what was happening full stop. Finally her arms did move, and she took a step backwards just as Tissaia was turning to look over her shoulder and tell off whoever had just tried to knock her over.  
'Do that again and I'll... ' Tissaia started to grind though her teeth, but she stopped speaking when she saw Yennefer, and just raised an eyebrow. Yennefer stared back at the sunglasses infront of her, feeling (and probably looking) like an escaped convict caught under a helecopter spotlight.  
Tissaia seemed to weigh up her reply for a few moments, dragging out Yennefers torture.  
'Please refrain from touching me again without my permission, Miss Vengerberg,' she finally finished, and she turned away again without another word. Yennefer was trying to proccess these words and her sudden raised temperature when she heard a barely-suppressed snigger from behind her. She threw her bodyweight backwards and slammed into Jaskier, this time controlled, and he let out an 'oof'.  
'Shut up,' Yennefer said, 'or I'll tell everyone your nickname is a mistranslation'. 

***

The students had been left to roam free around the Colosseum, and Tissaia took this opportunity to lean against a wall in the shade. Geralt had given a talk about the history of the Flavian building, including the standard demonstration of gladitorial combat in which a couple of students got minorly injured. Tissaia had heard nothing but the pain pounding in her ears, and so didn't bother paying much attention. She knew it all anyway. Instead, she slowly made her way to the side of the group and watched her students. Well, watched Yennefer. Her headache was blocking the part of her brain that was adverse to staring, so she took full advantage of this and stared to her hearts content. After 10 minutes, Tissaia only had her previous opinions confirmed. Yennefer was fucking gorgeous. Like, beyond gorgeous. Therefor she decided it was only natural to find her infuriatingly attractive. This made her feel slightly better, and also slightly annoyed at Yennefer. She must know that she's beautiful, and therefore was probably taking delight in torturing Tissaia and making a fool out of her. She probably laughed about it with Pankratz. That must have been what the snigger was about ealier.  
Tissaia sunk further back into the wall behind her, letting her head rest on the cool stone.  
'Did you know they once filled the stage of the Colosseum with water, and recreated a sea battle?' Tissaia heard Yennefer ask. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.  
Tissaia rolled her head to look at Yennefer.  
'Of course I know that. I'm your professor,' she replied. She'd be damned if she'd let the girl take her for a fool again. Tissaia stood away from the wall, ignoring her head's protestations, and walked away, hopefully leaving Yennefer wondering what she had done wrong.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today, heres a list of all the jokes Jaskier told Yennefer while they were walking around the Colosseum:

Why did the Roman women never win Hide & Seek?  
-Because Julius Caesar.  
(Yennefer didn't dignify this with an answer) 

What do you call a happy Roman soldier with a hair stuck in his teeth?  
\- A "Glad he ate her"  
(Yennefer found this one secretly funny. But didn't let on) 

The Greeks invented sex.  
-The Romans introduced it to women.  
(Yennefer replied 'I didn't know you were Greek', and Jaskier was displeased) 

What did Romans say when they left Cleopatra's bedroom?  
-I saw, I conquered, I came.  
(Yennefer called Jaskier out on having stolen that from Pitbull, and Jaskier proceed to sing Fireball for the next 20 minutes) 

AND ONE JOKE YENNEFER TOLD JASKIER, PURELY TO CONFUSE HIM. 

A Roman walks into a bar and says “I’ll have a martinus.”  
The bartender asks “Don’t you mean a martini?”

In response the Roman says “If I wanted a double I’d have asked for it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://youtu.be/HMqgVXSvwGo


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaaaaand, we're back!

Yennefer was not best pleased with how her day was panning out. It was evident from Tissaia’s behaviour towards her that the charm/intelligence offensive Yennefer had so well prepared for was not going to plan, and she had no idea why. Had she said something wrong? Yennefer frantically ran through the few sentences she had spoken to her professor since last night and came up with nothing that could have been seen as even slightly offensive. Except that time she had walked into Tissaia and nearly knocked her over. Yennefer had (perhaps foolishly, in retrospect) assumed that her admonishment was at least partially in jest or flirtation, but obviously she was wrong. Women. Why did everything always have to be so darned complicated? Yennefer exhaled and leant back on the stone steps she was sitting on, a bit aways from the rest of the class eating their lunch. The sun was hot on her face, and heat on her eyes temporarily distracted her from the cluster fuck that had become her day. She groaned, and considered becoming straight. Seducing Narcissus and not being confused all the time. Then she remembered how hot Tissaia was, and how… male… men were, and gave it up as a bad idea. A body sat down next to her with a soft sigh, and Yennefer knew right away who it was. She did not appreciate this pattern of sneaking up on each other they seemed to have fallen into, and kept her head back and eyes shut.  
‘Can I have some of your water?’ Tissaia asked, sounding done with life. Yennefer straightened up and looked at the smaller woman. She was still wearing the sunglasses that hadn’t left her face all day, and her skin was even paler than usual. Water? Was she taking the piss? Yennefer considered saying no, but knew that would never happen.  
‘Please,’ Tissaia continued. Yennefer narrowed her eyes, slightly astounded this was happening, and reached behind her to grab her water.  
‘Have you ever used the word please before?’ Yennefer snarked, not handing over the bottle quite yet.  
‘Just give me the fucking water, Yennefer,’ Tissaia snapped back, before grabbing the bottle.  
Yennefer stared in disbelief as Tissaia drank half the bottle and slouched back on her elbows. Silence fell while Yennefer continued to be dumbfounded and Tissaia… well to be honest, she was just sitting there like a statue while Yennefer stared at her. Yennefer glanced over at where Jaskier was talking at Narcissus to try and catch his eye and make some kind of ‘what the fuck is happening’ signal, but Jaskier didn’t remove his eyes from the bored looking man in front of him.  
‘They used flat bottomed boats,’ Tissaia said, barely above a whisper.  
Yennefer wondered if this whole episode was a figment of her imagination. Had she ever actually left Oxford? Was this some sort of Life on Mars situation where she was going to start being plagued by a Bowie song?  
‘Pardon?’ Yennefer eventually replied, an edge to her voice.  
Tissaia turned to look at her and moved her sunglasses to the crown of her head. She winced in pain at the sunlight. Her eyes looked tired, and Yennefer wished she would put the sunglasses back on because she didn’t want to feel the urge to comfort Tissaia right now. She was trying to be pissed off, after all.  
Tissaia sighed, and spoke again.  
‘In the naval battles in the Colosseum. They had special flat bottomed boats because the water was so shallow. The keel wouldn’t fit’.  
Yennefer nodded. Was this meant to be an apology? If so, it was perhaps one of the worst she had ever heard. Luckily Tissaia continued speaking, saving Yennefer from having to formulate a reply.  
‘Never try to keep up with a man at least 8 times your bodyweight. It only ends in agony’.  
Yennefer balked at that sentence. This must be a dream. Her professor who she had an unspoken thing (could they call it a thing? Was it a thing yet?) with was currently sitting next to her, sharing her drink, and telling her about whatever she had done last night with the god amongst the mere mortals of her class. Yennefer was perfectly willing to talk about sex with Tissaia. More than willing, in fact. But preferably after they had, had literally any other conversation. And preferably the sex conversation would not be about Tissaia and Narcissus, and how Narcissus had flat out broken her. Yennefer felt a bit dizzy. Was it hot? Of course it was hot, it was southern Italy. But was it hotter than usual?  
Yennefer watched Tissaia drop her arms and head down onto her knee. The woman mumbled something, but Yennefer couldn’t make it out. Moreover, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Regardless, she found herself asking Tissaia what she had said.  
‘I. Am. Never. Drinking. Again,’ Tissaia repeated.  
Yennefer’s brain struggled to understand. Never try to keep up…. Drinking… Ah.  
‘So you didn’t sleep with Narcissus?’ Yennefer blurted out, before she could censor her mouth.  
Tissaia sat up abruptly, and grabbed her head in pain at the sudden movement. Once the pain had cleared, she looked at Yennefer incredulously, and opened her mouth to respond.  
‘Get up, it’s time to move,’ Geralt shouted, and everyone’s heads turned to look at him, then started gathering up their stuff. Thank fuck. Yennefer used this opportunity to jump to her feet and flee before she had to suffer the consequences of her runaway mouth.  
‘Keep the water!’ she told Tissaia, and she bolted to the relative safety of the herd.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also,  
> I have twitter and I *never* tweet anything, but hit me up if you wanna chat.  
> @ArgoLovesApples  
> (yes, Xena rules every facet of my life)


	13. Chapter 13

Yennefer’s alarm once again pounded through Tissaia’s hotel room wall. This time though, she was awake before it, and had been lying in her bed doing admin on her phone for almost half an hour. The hangover was, mercifully, completely gone. It had just seemed to go from terrible to even-fucking-worse throughout the day and by the time they had returned back to the hotel it was verging on the unbearable. Even Geralt had asked if she was okay when she told him she was skipping dinner, and just going straight to her bed. And in her bed she still was, 14 hours later.  
Up until Lapdance started blaring from next door, Tissaia had forgotten that Yennefer was a thing that was going on in her life right now. But now she remembered with all too much clarity. Tissaia dropped her phone down on to the bed, put a pillow over her face, and groaned into it. She would have to put a stop to all this right now. Yes, Yennefer was very attractive, but that wasn’t worth losing the inner peace she had cultivated for ten years. If she could just put a stop to this whole thing right now, Tissaia was certain that her inner peace would return to her, and she wouldn’t have to ride the emotional highs and lows like a ship in a storm anymore. Tell the girl no, and she can return to dry land. She really was very beautiful though. And her body looked… hard? Was that the right word?  
Tissaia mentally flicked through some synonyms as she got out of bed and turned on the shower.  
‘Tight?’ Tissaia mulled, pulling her nightshirt over her head. ‘No, that’s too vulgar’.  
She put her foot under the water to see if it was hot yet. It was not.  
‘Firm? Definitely not’.  
The water was hot now and Tissaia stepped into the shower. She stood directly under it and kept thinking as the water cascaded down her in rivers.  
‘Maybe hard was as good as it was going to get. It’s a pity that reminds me of American Psycho. ‘Hard-bodies’. I wonder if Yennefer has read that book, she looks like she’d have read that book. She looks….she looks…. Dense?’  
Tissaia washed her hair and wondered if dense was actually a synonym for hard. Was something dense necessarily hard, or vice versa? Maybe if she’d taken physics at school, she would know the answer right now. Anyway, dense was absurd, Yennefer was anything but that.  
Tissaia started washing her body, resigned to never being able to find the correct adjective for what she was trying to say. On third thought, hard seemed like the correct word after all. If Yennefer’s thighs were hard under Tissaia’s hands when they were wrapped around her waist, wouldn’t that be the right word? If she Yennefer’s body was solid (better word? No. Less hot) against hers when she pushed her against a wall, was it not still the right word? Tissaia’s hand brushed over her nipple as she washed and she gasped at the sudden feeling. Maybe trying to think of ways to describe Yennefer’s body while she was in the shower, and Yennefer herself was only just through a plasterboard wall, hadn’t been Tissaia’s brightest move. She was suddenly very aware of wanting to be touched, and honestly, what harm could it do? She would just have to think of something else. But Tissaia’s mind had backtracked to being between Yennefer’s thighs, and her hand was trailing up her inner thigh, and honestly what was she supposed to do to stop it? 

**

Yennefer had a game plan. This seemed to be her new morning routine: wake up, ruminate, decide she needs a plan, make plan, go make herself look good for said plan, then execute plan. She hoped this routine didn’t continue for very long, it was exhausting. Today’s plan came about after she hadn’t seen Tissaia _at all_ after accidentally asking her about her sex life in a slightly judgemental fashion. Yennefer needed to apologise or she would never be able to look at the woman again, and this trip had a long way to go yet. After singing ‘YOU CAN GET THIS LAPDANCE HERE FOR FREE’ for the required daily length of time, Yennefer started getting prepared. She had to achieve the perfect ‘I’m not completely ready for the day yet, this is just what I look like when I’ve only been up for five minutes’ look, and that required a lot more than she had anticipated. Finally, 40 minutes later, she found herself standing outside the door next to hers, and after a brief panic where she thought for a second she’d forgotten her key and locked herself out of her room, she knocked on it.  
Yennefer heard footsteps approach the door, and forced herself to look calm and collected. Or at least to do the best impression of calm and collected as she could muster. The handle of the door clacked several times, and then it finally opened. Yennefer looked at Tissaia standing in the doorway. Her hair was down and wet, and water was soaking into the wine-red silk shit she was wearing. And that’s _all_ she was wearing. Yennefer tried forcibly to keep her eyes away from the bare legs in front of her and smiled at Tissaia, who looked horrified.  
‘Fuck. I thought you were Geralt’. Tissaia said.  
This explained nothing to Yennefer. But this time, she had decided to keep her cool at all costs, and replied using her brain.  
‘Sorry to disappoint,’ Yennefer replied.  
Tissaia’s face pinkened a little, and she rolled her eyes. She didn’t reply. It took Yennefer a moment to realise that she was probably waiting for her to explain why she was knocking on her door at half past 7 in the morning. Yennefer was about to speak, but suddenly Tissaia decided to end the painful silence lest it stretch on forever.  
‘Have you come for your water bottle?’ Tissaia asked, and she turned away to walk to the other end of the room. Yennefer stared at the woman’s legs as she walked away, and cursed who ever designed shirts to hang low enough to cover Tissaia’s ass. Tissaia came back with the bottle. Yennefer laughed.  
‘Did I come back for my 1 euro Spar water bottle?’ Yennefer said, jokingly.  
Tissaia looked bemused.  
‘No, I did not come back for my crushed water bottle,’ Yennefer continued by way of clarification.  
Tissaia cocked her head to the side.  
‘What are you here for then, Miss Vengerberg?’ She asked.  
‘I wanted to say I’m sorry,’ Yennefer rushed out. She was not used to apologising. She had done it once before and it hadn’t sat well with her.  
‘What for?’ Tissaia replied, motioning that Yennefer should come into the room and shut the door behind her.  
Yennefer was suddenly exceedingly nervous. This was not the plan. She was supposed to be in control here, but now Tissaia was the one asking the leading questions and looking at her like a cat looks at a trapped mouse. Regardless, Yennefer did as she was told and shut the door, then moved further into the room. She decided to lean against the table with the tv on it, in an attempt to look at ease. She folded her arms, then quickly unfolded them so as not to look defensive.  
‘For asking about things I have no place asking about,’ Yennefer eventually replied. Hoping that was enough and she would be spared the embarrassment of having to repeat the whole scenario from yesterday.  
Tissaia took a step towards Yennefer, still looking like a cat, and increasing Yennefer’s anxiety even more.  
‘Geralt has no interest in me,’ She replied.  
‘Is he blind?’ Yennefer blurted out. Controlling your mouth wasn’t a skill one could learn over night, it seemed.  
Tissaia smiled.  
‘No, I’m just not his…thing’.  
It was Yennefer’s turn to narrow her eyes.  
‘Are you trying to say he’s gay?’ Yennefer asked. Tissaia had taken another step forward and now was barely over a meter in front of her. Fuck.  
‘I didn’t think it needed said, dear,’ Tissaia answered, and took another step forward.  
‘That must… ah… must be very disappointing for you,’ Yennefer stammered out. She could smell Tissaia’s shampoo they were so close now.  
Tissaia let out a low chuckle that made Yennefer’s skin tingle.  
‘I can’t say I’ve never been less disappointed in my life,’ Tissaia replied.  
They were a foot away from each other now. Tissaia crossed her arms over her ribs and tilted her head to the side, studying Yennefer.  
‘Have you been to Rome before,’ Tissaia asked.  
Yennefer didn’t follow what was going on, but shook her head anyway.  
Tissaias eyes flicked down from Yennefer’s face, down her body, and back up again.  
‘You’ll spend tonight with me’. Tissaia said, and she stepped away, leaving Yennefer a clear path back to the door.  
‘I will?’ Yennefer said. Honestly, she was surprised she could say anything at all.  
‘Yes. I mean, don’t tell anyone or they’ll think I’m playing favourites. But I am playing favourites’.  
‘You don’t have to do this, I’m perfectly fine if you don’t want to…’ Yennefer was worried that Tissaia was pitying her or something, and the only thing worse than rejection was pity.  
‘I was cruel to you yesterday, so come get me from here at 7,’ Tissaia said with finality. ‘Have a nice day, Miss Vengerberg’.  
Yennefer was obviously meant to leave now. She nodded and walked over to the door, turning around when she opened it to look back at Tissaia. Tissaia, however, had disappeared from the room (although logically Yennefer knew she could only be in the bathroom), and Yennefer left with a sigh. She let herself back into her room, and leant against the back of her door. What the fuck just happened? Yennefer had no idea, and she had a suspicion she might never find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today I discovered that making scrambled eggs for five people in one pan takes a fucking long time. Every day is a school day, folks!


	14. Chapter 14

Hello! 

So I have an essay due tomorrow night for which I am woefully underprepared, and I must focus on that or I'll disappoint my hot and **extremely clever** tutor and I'm sure you can all agree that is something I just absolutely cannot do. This is the woman that gave a whole lecture about the portrayal of Cleopatra in AC Origins. I cannot let this human down. 

So I'll be back tuesday (the 31st) with the next chapter! 

In the mean time, here's a song I am giving you as homework - think of it as advice for these hard times. 

Much love! back soon! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpDmklLFXVc


	15. Chapter 15

At five minutes to seven that evening, Tissaia was ready. Well, she was _physically_ ready. Mentally, she was far from prepared, and was pacing up and down in her hotel room in what could only be described as a slight panic. At half past seven that morning stealing the upper hand to watch Yennefer squirm had seemed like a great idea, but as the day had drawn on the more it seemed like a foolish, post orgasm move. She hadn’t meant to do it, but being in control was familiar to her and it just sort of…happened by accident? But now Yennefer was about to knock on her hotel room door after a day of stolen glances and rising tensions, and she was nervous. She gave herself a small pep talk as she paced. Come on, Tissaia. This is nothing. Imagine if your exes could see you now, nervous about some child. Imagine if your past subs could see you! They’d be disappointed.   
Tissaia ruminated over this for a second and realised she hadn’t actually stopped to think what her end game was here. What did she want from Yennefer? Nothing about this situation had occurred with any forethought behind it and this had left her not knowing what she was working towards. Did she want to fuck her? Date her? Dominate her? Tissaia laughed softly at that last one. That wasn’t going to be happening any time soon, as nice as the image was. There was a hesitant knock on the door. Tissaia shook the thoughts out of her head, smoothed out any creased in the black bodycon, long sleeved dress she was wearing, and answered the door.   
Yennefer was leaning against the doorframe, wearing skinny jeans and a soft white shirt, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. She had one eyebrow raised, looking relaxed as if this was an everyday occurrence. Tissaia realised this probably _was_ a daily occurrence for her. Yennefer’s eyes found hers and stayed there, which wasn’t the languid glance of appraisal down her body that Tissaia had been going for but was nice none the less.   
‘Hi,’ Yennefer said, stepping into the room. Tissaia watched her walk past and sit down on the end of the bed.   
‘Hello’, Tissaia replied. She narrowed her eyes. She was losing control fast and had to take it back now or she’d never see it again.   
‘Don’t sit down, we’re leaving,’ Tissaia said, grabbing her coat from the back of a chair. Yennefer jumped up and mumbled a sorry and Tissaia raised her eyebrows in surprise.   
‘Why are you bringing a coat? It’s like 30 degrees out there’, Yennefer asked as they left the hotel room, and headed for the front exit.  
‘It won’t be 30 degrees at midnight, will it now’, Tissaia replied. She handed her key into reception so she didn’t have to worry about it, and lead the way out into the street.   
‘Ever the pragmatist. Where are we going?’ Yennefer said. Tissaia called a car with her phone, and when it arrived motioned for Yennefer to get in.   
‘You’ll see’, answered Tissaia.   
Yennefer did as she was told and got in the car, sliding to the seat on the far side to make room.   
‘Miss de Vries?’ The driver asked, pressing a button on his satnav.   
‘Professor’, Tissaia corrected. The driver ignored her and pulled out onto the road, and Tissaia heard Yennefer laugh quietly.   
A few minutes passed as they watched the streets go past out the windows. Every so often they’d go through a square full of a mismatch of tables and chairs that belonged to the various restaurants and cafes around the square, and Tissaia would look at the people with mild interest. Eventually they started to leave the business of the city behind, and the buildings started to get further apart, and the streets started to get a lot quieter.  
‘Are you planning on kidnapping me?’ Yennefer suddenly said from her side of the car. Tissaia turned inwards to face her.   
‘Not unless you ask me to’, Tissaia replied. ‘Did you enjoy the Ara Pacis today?’.   
Yennefer thought for a minute.   
‘I imagine it’s more impressive when it isn’t full of English university students shouting, ‘I am 76 years old!’’.   
Tissaia laughed.   
‘It is. Go back another time. Perhaps once the tomb across the road has been opened’.   
Yennefer nodded, and looked out of the window again.   
‘Are we going to Pompeii?’ Yennefer asked.   
‘No, we’re not going to Pompeii. Or anywhere on the bay of Naples. Unless you’d like to be stuck in this car for another three hours’, Tissaia replied.   
‘Oh, I thought we already had been in it for three hours’, Yennefer said sarcastically.   
Tissaia rolled her eyes.   
‘If you’ve had enough, I’ll gladly ask our driver to pull over so you can get out’. Tissaia replied. The driver looked up and caught Tissaia’s eye in the rear view mirror, with an eyebrow raised. Tissaia shook her head ever so slightly and looked back to the road. The sea was coming into view in the distance, signalling they were nearly at their destination.   
Tissaia returned her gaze to Yennefer, who was also looking at the sea. She could see the girl thinking, trying to put two and two together and figure out where they were.   
‘Are we going to Ostia?’ Yennefer finally said, sounding unsure.   
‘What gave it away? The road signs that have been on the side of the motorway for the last half an hour?’ Tissaia replied, her voice softer than her words. Yennefer, however, was too excited to register Tissaia’s snark, and she started quizzing the professor on the place they were about the visit.   
‘So Ostia was the port of ancient Rome, right?’ Yennefer asked.   
‘Yes, dear. But it’s not next to the sea any more’, Tissaia replied.   
‘The coast has moved?’   
‘Yes’.   
Yennefer looked out of the window and thought for a minute, but soon resumed her questioning.  
‘Was it ever sacked by pirates’, she asked.  
‘Yes’.   
‘When’.   
’68 BC. They were eventually defeated by Pompey’.   
‘The Pompey that was beheaded by Ptolemy the 12th for Ceasar?’.  
‘The very same’.   
‘Hmmm’.   
‘Indeed’.   
The questions continued until the car pulled up outside a stone arch, and the driver turned and looked at Tissaia.   
‘Shall I wait here?’ He asked.   
‘No, we’ll walk to dinner from here. I’ll call when we want to go back’, Tissaia replied.   
The driver attempted a smile to indicate he understood, and Tissaia got out the car. Yennefer shuffled out after her rather than open her own door, which Tissaia found strangely endearing. The car drove off, and she walked over to a set of wrought iron gates set into a wall. She took a key out of her bag, and unlocked it, ushering Yennefer through. Yennefer looked both impressed and confused, but she did what she was told and Tissaia locked the door behind them. The walked down a path, turned a corner, and they walked into a large space full of white columns, and trees full of parakeets, and very green grass.   
‘Welcome to Ostia Antica,’ Tissaia said, and Yennefer turned and smiled at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BY WAY OF EXPLANATION:   
> The Ara Pacis is an alter built by the first emperor of Rome, Augustus, and in his 'Res Gestae Divi Augustus' (or deeds of the divine augustus) he writes all of his accomplishments. Including the excellent last line 'I AM 76 YEARS OLD'.


	16. Chapter 16

Yennefer let Tissaia lead her around Ostia Antica, and asked questions about various things to her heart’s content. She knew her thoughts were cliched, but the whole thing seemed somewhat like a dream. Ostia was beautiful, and everything was so well preserved it was amazing. On top of this, Tissaia was in full lecturer mode, and it was fucking hot. Every so often, Tissaia would want to draw Yennefer’s attention to something or other, and she would place her hand on Yennefer’s lower back as she pointed, to steer her in the right direction. Every time this happened Yennefer would see everything as if she was a third person, and she would watch with amazement as Professor de Vries, she of the pencil skirts and the raised eyebrows, touched her so casually.   
They were looking at a mosaic on what had been the floor of the forum, Tissaia’s hand once again warm on Yennefer’s back while she explained about the implications of depictions of elephants in the Roman Empire, when Yennefer looked to the side and found her face millimetres away from her professor’s. Tissaia turned to face her, and Yennefer could feel warm breath hit her lips. Her eyes darted down to Tissaia’s lips, and she was just about to do something rash when suddenly there was a loud cough from behind them. Tissaia whipped her head away and looked over her shoulder, not moving her hand. Yennefer looked round too and saw a woman with black hair and disconcertingly back eyes, wearing a blue shirt and black slacks held up by suspenders, standing a few meters behind them. Yennefer felt Tissaia’s hand leave her back.  
‘Philippa,’ Tissaia said with enthusiasm that was barely convincing, in Yennefer’s opinion.   
‘Tiss!’ The woman who was apparently called Philippa replied, as she walked towards them and pulled Tissaia into a hug which Tissaia attempted to return. Yennefer stood back a little. Philippa was talking at Tissaia and ignoring Yennefer’s presence completely, and Tissaia was responding with a series of non-committal phrases. Eventually Philippa paused for breath, and Yennefer took the opportunity to remind everyone that she was there.   
‘Hi,’ Yennefer said a little too forcefully, cringing at how unintelligent she sounded. The other two women turned to look at her: Tissaia with an amused smile, Philippa with a look of distaste.   
‘This is Yennefer Vengerberg, she’s doing her master’s with us this year,’ Tissaia said, by way of introduction. ‘Yennefer, this is Philippa Eilhart. She is an archaeological advisor to the municipality of Rome. She also got her masters in classics at Oxford’.   
Yennefer looked at Philippa, who in turn was looking at Yennefer with a smug look on her face.   
‘How do you do?’ Yennefer said, wishing the other woman would just go away. Philippa looked down at Yennefer’s outstretched hand and raised an amused eyebrow before taking it in her own and shaking it.   
‘How do you do,’ she replied.   
Yennefer wasn’t sure, but she thought she caught Tissaia roll her eyes from where she was standing behind Philippa.   
‘It’s been very nice to see you, but I’m afraid we really must be going. The sun is almost down and we have reservations for dinner’, Tissaia said curtly, and Philippa dropped Yennefer’s hand like a hot stone.   
‘Where are you going?’ Philippa asked. Yennefer didn’t like where this was going, and by the look on her face Tissaia didn’t either.   
‘Il Campione,’ Tissaia said. She looked apologetically at Yennefer.  
‘Excellent! I know the owner, so there will be no trouble if I join you’. Philippa said.   
‘Of course you know the owner. You really wouldn’t be missing much, we’re just going to go over what Yennefer has thought about the trip so far,’ Tissaia replied, obviously trying to decline the not-so-polite offer.   
‘Oh, I’m sure she’s been having a _wonderful_ time. Isn’t that right, Jennefer?’ Philippa said, with a wink in Yennefer’s direction. Yennefer repressed a snarl at the purposeful mispronunciation of her name, and this time she was sure she saw Tissaia roll her eyes.   
‘Well, we’d better get going if you’ve got to leave soon’, Philippa added with an air of finality, and Yennefer watched with amusement as Philippa attempted to lead Tissaia away by placing her hand on Tissaia’s back, and Tissaia knocked Philippa’s hand away with her arm, obviously displeased.   
**  
They arrived at the restaurant a little before ten. Philippa had talked the entire walk, and Yennefer hadn’t even pretended to be listening. She hadn’t had to, because Philippa had made sure that Yennefer was left trailing behind the other two women the whole time. Tissaia glanced back at her at every available opportunity, as if she was worried Yennefer would just decide to run away. Yennefer didn’t like this new way their evening had gone, but she wasn’t about to leave.  
Philippa wasn’t lying about knowing the owner, and when they got there an extra seat was brought to their table. Philippa thanked the waiter that brought the chair with a passive aggressive ‘you really didn’t have to’, and Tissaia thanked him with what looked like a 20 euro note. The table was slightly too small for three people, and Yennefer found herself uncomfortably close to Philippa, and no-where near as close as she’d like to be to Tissaia. Their menus were brought to them, and silence fell as they looked through the offerings. Yennefer settled quickly on what she wanted and placed her menu back down in front of her. Yennefer looked around the restaurant, at the people eating and laughing, and let her mind wonder for a second where this evening would have gone if they hadn’t been rudely interrupted when they were. Yennefer would have kissed Tissaia, or Tissaia would have kissed her. Then they would have sauntered to the restaurant in their little bubble of happiness and eaten their dinner with their heads leant together in conversation, stealing touches and glances.   
Instead, Yennefer found herself watching as Philippa leant close to Tissaia’s ear and whispered something, and Tissaia forced a laugh and politely removed Philippa’s hand from her arm.   
This was going to be a long evening.


	17. Chapter 17

It occurred to Tissaia halfway through dinner that she may, in fact, be in hell. When Sartre wrote that hell is other people, he must have been imagining this very scenario. Well, he had actually written ‘l’enfer, c’est les autres’, but he would, being French and all. Tissaia repeated the phrase in French over and over in her head. ‘l’enfer, c’est les…autres’. The French, when their country was occupied in WW2 called the Nazis les autres, or ‘the others’. Hell is Nazis.  
Tissaia realised her thoughts were running away from her and dragged her mind back to the room. Food had been brought to the table, and even Philippa was quiet as she ate. Small mercies. Tissaia toyed with her pasta, having lost her appetite some time ago, and slid her gaze from her plate up to Yennefer. She was pushing a prawn around on her plate, and scowling as she did so. Tissaia sighed, and Yennefer looked up, her violet eyes meeting Tissaia’s for a second before returning to the prawn. Phillipa, unsurprisingly, was eating with gusto.  
Tissaia would dearly have loved to tell her to fuck off right when she first accosted them in the forum, but alas Philippa was a great ‘asset’ to Oxford University. She was as brilliant as she was infuriating, and Tissaia couldn’t afford to upset her lest they lose her to another institution. These were the words the head of classics had said to Tissaia angrily in his office 8 years ago, after she had snapped and told Philippa she was no longer welcome in her class. It turned out the don was rather concerned Philippa finished her PhD with them and didn’t abandon them (and the man actually shivered at this point) for _Cambridge_.  
And so she found herself in this situation at the restaurant, and frankly it was getting tiring. Philippa disregarding Yennefer was challenging Tissaia’s ability to keep her promise of civility, and she hated that she looked weak. Would Yennefer think her weak? Of course she would. But honestly, did she care if this student got the wrong impression of her if it meant she got to keep her job and her position at the school. Tissaia couldn’t even pretend that her answer to that question was no. She cared. She wanted to impress Yennefer, annoyingly.  
‘Are you going to eat that?’ Philippa said, pointing at Tissaia’s plate with her fork. Tissaia looked up at her and narrowed her eyes.  
‘Yes,’ Tissaia lied, and Philippa simply shrugged and asked the same question to Yennefer. Yennefer was about to relinquish the rest of her dinner when Tissaia couldn’t help but cut in.  
‘Philippa, I don’t want mine after all’.  
Tissaia pushed her plate towards Philippa, keeping Yennefer’s dinner safe for the time being. This was getting absurd. Maybe she could say she didn’t feel well and have Yennefer ‘help’ her to their car. Philippa couldn’t argue with that. Except she could, and no doubt would. Plus she refused to look any weaker than she already did.  
Philippa had soon finished what was left of Tissaia’s food, and before Tissaia could interject Philippa had once again asked Yennefer if she was going to eat what was left of hers.  
‘Don’t,’ Tissaia told Yennefer under her breath, before she really considered what she was doing. Yennefer had been halfway through passing her plate over when Tissaia spoke, and she quickly put it back down in front of herself. No-one spoke, and Tissaia let herself hope that Philippa would not take this opportunity to start a fight. This hope was ill founded.  
‘My, she has you well trained already, doesn’t she,’ Philippa said to Yennefer, with an unpleasant smirk on her face. Yennefer looked incredulous and was obviously about to bite back when Tissaia cut in.  
‘Philippa, leave her be’. The words seemed innocent enough, but Tissaia knew this may well have been enough to start world war three.  
Philippa gave an exaggerated gasp, and clutched her heart with her hand.  
‘Professor de Vries, could it be that I’ve upset my _esteemed_ mentor?’ she said, with mock contrition.  
‘Philippa…,’ Tissaia warned. She didn’t want this going any further.  
‘No, Tiss, don’t ‘Philippa’ me. Why can’t I finish her food? She’s obviously not going to eat it. Are you, Jennefer?’  
‘It’s Yennefer,’ Yennefer said.  
‘Shush now, the grown ups are talking,’ Philippa replied, palming Yennefer off.  
‘Excuse me?’ Tissaia said, trying to swallow her anger. She wasn’t sure why she was surprised those words came out of Philippa’s mouth, but yet here they were. ‘Do not talk to her like that’.  
‘I’ll talk to her however I like,’ Philippa answered, squaring off to Tissaia.  
‘No, you won’t. What on earth made you think you can speak to her like that?’.  
‘Why can’t I. She’s barely more than an undergrad. She’s lucky to be in my presence let alone have dinner with me’.  
Tissaia stared for a second. Philippa sounded completely assured in her words, like she actually thought this was the case. Tissaia’s back prickled. Her head felt tight. She hated being angry.  
‘I don’t know who you think you are, but I’m afraid you are massively overselling yourself. You are no more than a glorified favourite child. You’ve been told your whole life that you are something special but I’m afraid that is only marginally the case’.  
Philippa didn’t look phased at all.  
‘Oh please,’ she said, you’re proud of me and you know it. And if you’re not, it’s because I am so much more than you already’.  
Tissaia laughed. She had had enough of this nonsense, and since they were not even pretending to be friends any more she didn’t have to stay any longer. Tissaia stood up, and motioned for Yennefer to do the same. She put her coat on and put a pile of euro notes on the table. Philippa stayed sitting down, lounging back in her chair like a prince holding court. Yennefer came and stood next to Tissaia, and Tissaia gave her a reassuring smile.  
‘It’s true, you were my best student. And yes, I was proud of you. But now I have only contempt for you, and your foolish disregard for the feelings of others. Goodnight, Philippa’.  
And with this, Tissaia turned to leave, guiding Yennefer with her. Yennefer, however, pulled away from Tissaia and leant down towards Philippa.  
‘You can have the food now,’ Yennefer said, sweetly. ‘I hope you have a nice night’.  
And with that Yennefer returned to Tissaia’s side, and they left the restaurant. Philippa was no doubt watching their backs, pretending to be amused for the benefit of the other customers that had witnessed the whole thing.  
‘That was fun,’ Yennefer said to Tissaia, as they left the building.  
Tissaia exhaled, and tried to let the tension leave her body. She felt keyed up, and more than that she felt…spontaneous? Which was a word she would never usually use for herself, but she may have to add it to her list of personal adjectives because instead of replying to Yennefer, Tissaia stepped forward, looked into her eyes, and kissed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read Sartre's play, No Exit, it's hilarious and also makes our lock-down seem a little bit less bad. At least we have eyelids!


	18. Chapter 18

Yennefer Vengerberg was being kissed by Tissaia de Vries. She wasn’t sure how it had happened but it was happening none the less, and who was she to stop it. One minute she had been standing there, amused that Tissaia had finally told that annoying woman where she could go, and the next minute there was warm lips pressing against her own, and there a hand tangled in her hair at the back of her head. She froze in surprise for a moment, her brain taking a second to catch up, but when Tissaia started to pull away because Yennefer wasn’t kissing back she suddenly came to life and chased Tissaia’s lips, pulling her back in. Yennefer put her hands on Tissaia’s waist to keep her where she was, and she was rewarded with a sweep of the professor’s tongue over her bottom lip. Yennefer parted her lips slightly and moaned half in surprise, and half in pleasure, when Tissaia nipped at her bottom lip.   
Tissaia chuckled, and pulled away slightly, removing her hand from Yennefer’s hair but not stepping back.   
‘The car is here,’ she said, brushing a hair off Yennefer’s face with a smile. Yennefer stared, dumbly. She hadn’t heard a car, but she looked to her right and saw that their car was indeed waiting at the kerb. The driver was busy staring at his phone and absolutely _not_ watching them.   
Yennefer remembered to breathe and had to stop herself keening in disappointment when Tissaia stepped back and opened the car door, holding it open for Yennefer. She slid in, and Tissaia followed not long after, slamming the door shut with enough force to make the driver snap his eyes up to stare through the rear-view mirror.  
‘Sorry,’ Tissaia said in a manner that betrayed her complete lack of contrition.   
‘Back to the hotel?’ The driver asked, turning the engine over.   
Tissaia replied with a nod, and they pulled out onto the road.   
The driver continued to try and make conversation with Tissaia, and Yennefer used this as an opportunity to try and process the last few hours. She had been kissed! She had often imagined kissing Tissaia, but it hadn’t even occurred to her that Tissaia would kiss _her_. And she liked it. She imagined she would let Tissaia do anything to her, as long as she promised to kiss her like that again. Yennefer shifted in her seat, crossing one leg over the other. She had tried to restrain herself from thinking of what she wanted that woman to do to her because she didn’t have her consent and it felt wrong for some reason. This in itself had been a revelation for Yennefer. She had never bothered to feel bad about sexualising people for her own gain before but for some reason with Tissaia she felt like she needed permission. Anyway it didn’t matter now, because she had kissed her and if that wasn’t permission to fantasise about her, Yennefer didn’t know what was. Perhaps not right now though. In this car. With the object of her dreaming right next to her and being attractively annoyed by the driver’s insistence on talking. Yennefer drove the thoughts of being bent over things out of her mind and prepared to speak the next time there was a lull in the gripping conversation going on next to her.  
‘So, who’s Philippa?’ she asked, when the first opportunity arrived.   
Tissaia rolled her eyes and leant against the inside of her door so she could face Yennefer.   
‘She’s a former student,’ Tissaia replied, curtly.   
‘Is that all?’ Yennefer continued, determined to find out.   
Tissaia smiled, smugly.   
‘Are you jealous, Miss Vengerberg?’ she said.   
‘That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Why did you put up with her for so long tonight?’.   
‘She’s an ‘asset to the university’,’ Tissaia replied, by way of explanation.   
‘But you don’t consider her as such?’ Yennefer continued to probe.   
‘I don’t consider her much at all to be honest with you, Yennefer. She’s too brash for my liking. And altogether too ill mannered’.   
Yennefer considered for a moment if she was too brash. Was she brash? Fuck, what if she was brash. And she was certain that her manners had slipped more than once on this trip already. She was terrible at remembering some people don’t like her cigarette smoke.   
‘I think you’re very much to her liking, though,’ Yennefer finally replied. She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to take the conversation down this route, but she’d rather be broken hearted now than worry over whether she should be threatened by this woman who thought wearing suspenders was a viable fashion choice for anyone who wasn’t a gangster.   
‘I always have been,’ Tissaia replied, leaning her head back on the window glass. ‘I’m afraid she’s rather mistaken though’.   
‘How so?’  
Yennefer really needed to learn to think before she spoke.   
Tissaia looked at her and considered her answer, with a smile toying on her lips. ‘I’m afraid she’d find me… rather hard to control’.  
Yennefer mulled over these words for a second, wondering what exactly she meant. Unfortunately, the driver took this opportunity to fire in with more of his thrilling anecdotes, this time directed at Yennefer. The rest of the drive back to the city was spent by Yennefer either trying to answer the chatty man behind the wheel, or stealing glances at Tissaia, who seemed more than comfortable just spending the whole trip shamelessly staring at Yennefer.   
**  
They arrived back at the hotel somewhere around midnight, but no-one was wearing a watch so neither of them were really sure exactly what time it was when they found themselves climbing the stairs to their floor and walking along the corridors to their rooms. There was no conversation, and there seemed no pressing need to make any. Yennefer was floating somewhere between being completely exhausted, and excited for the possibility that Tissaia would drag her into her bedroom. Or just kiss her again, that would do for now.   
Eventually they made it, and Yennefer stood awkwardly as Tissaia unlocked her door. Should she be unlocking her door too? Probably.   
‘Well, goodni..’ Tissaia started to say, but Yennefer decided it was time to take action and kissed her, both of them stumbling back so Tissaia was pinned against the wall. This obviously wasn’t much to her liking, however, because she quickly flipped them so she was pushing against Yennefer, one knee pushed between her thighs and her hands gripping at Yennefer’s waist. But as soon as it started, it finished, and before Yennefer really knew what was going on Tissaia had whispered ‘goodnight’ into her ear and disappeared into her room, the door swinging shut behind her.   
Yennefer stood in the empty hallway, considering knocking on the door. She almost did, but she lost the nerve and let herself into her own room, hoping she would manage to sleep once she was in bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today I ate blueberry ice cream for the first time, and I'm happy to announce that it was entirely inoffensive.


	19. Chapter 19

Tissaia lay in her bed, once again staring at the ceiling and waiting to hear the quote-unquote ‘music’ start filtering through from the room next door. However, she’d been lying there for an hour and she still hadn’t heard any indication of life through the wall. She looked at her clock. The hands read 7.30, and she groaned. She had been telling herself she could stay in her little bubble of comfort and warmth under the duvet until she heard music, but time was shifting and she had to be at breakfast in half an hour. Sometimes she regretted being such a damn grown-up, and vaguely wondered if she just stayed in bed if anyone would miss her. But the hand on the clock moved to 7.31 and she got up, wondering if today was the day she would wear tailored shorts.   
**  
There was a sharp knock on her door and Yennefer stirred. Why was someone knocking on her door at this time in the morning? She checked her phone screen, and blanched when she read 8.55. There was another knock on the door, this time even more impatient. She hurled herself out of bed and towards the door, intending to let Jaskier (it must be Jaskier, who else would it be) into the room while she got dressed. She fiddled with the door, unable to get it open due to the fact she was still 98% asleep, and threw it open before turning away again and starting to pull clothes out of her suitcase. Jaskier would let himself in and if he was offended by the sight of her in her underwear, then he could fuck off because she didn’t have time for that bollocks. She was just pulling a tank top out and trying to decide if it was clean or not when she heard a deep cough from behind her. She turned ‘round, and saw Narcissus filling the whole doorframe, looking unimpressed. She was suddenly very aware she was half naked, but the main goal for right now was getting dressed so she went back to that task, and spoke to Geralt over her shoulder.   
‘You have a very feminine knock,’ she said, pulling skinny jeans on.   
‘hmm,’ she heard from behind her. She smiled to herself and hopped around pulling on socks.   
‘Has everyone left yet.’ She continued. If they had she was sure she could just subtly join them at the forum, which is where they were spending their whole day today. It was rather large though. It would be better if she didn’t have to spend several hours searching for them.   
‘No, Professor de Vries is holding them back by reading them the riot act about their apparent behaviour last night,’ Geralt answered.   
Yennefer was almost ready, now fully dressed and searching for her phone. She found it hidden under a pillow on the bed and headed out the room. Geralt moved out of the doorway, and walked down with her. He must have exhausted himself with that long sentence in the room, so stayed quiet the whole way down. The arrived in the lobby, and Yennefer heard Tissaia before she saw her.   
‘AND IF ANY OF YOU DECIDE THAT STEALING FROM OTHER GUESTS AT THIS HOTEL AND BREAKING INTO ROOMS IS SOMETHING YOU CANNOT RESIST FROM DOING AGAIN, I WILL PERSONALLY PUT YOU ON THE FIRST PLANE HOME!’.   
Tissaia was shouting, but she looked perfectly composed. In fact, she looked disinterested as she roared at the students gathered around her. Yennefer sought out Jaskier and went and stood next to him.   
‘Where have you been?’ he whispered when he saw her. Tissaia wasn’t shouting anymore but she was still talking, and even Jaskier wasn’t fool enough to be heard not paying attention to her.   
‘Spending quality time with Narcissus. What’s happening?’ she replied.   
‘Some students broke into the hotel entertainer’s room, stole his Elvis costume, and ran around the hotel wearing it. And no-one is owning up to it’.   
Yennefer suppressed a laugh. Of course that’s what happened.   
Tissaia finally wrapped up, and people started filtering out of the hotel, with Geralt at the helm. Tissaia had stood back, and was pinching the bridge of her nose.   
‘I’ll catch up with you in a bit,’ Yennefer said to Jaskier, and he gave her a questioning look as she shooed him away. She wandered slowly over to where Tissaia was standing and leant on the wall next to her.   
‘Oh. I see you finally bothered to join us,’ Tissaia said, without looking at her.   
‘Yes, well, it seems I forgot to set my alarm last night. I think that’s your fault really,’ Yennefer replied, casually.   
Tissaia dropped her hand from her face, and turned to look Yennefer in the eye.   
‘It’s hardly my fault if you can’t handle menial life tasks after one late-ish night,’ Tissaia said, but she was smiling now.   
‘Ready for a full day at the Forum?’ Yennefer asked, standing up to move.   
‘I expect to lose everyone at least once,’ replied Tissaia, and the professor started to walk out of the hotel, leaving Yennefer standing alone.   
Yennefer watched Tissaia walk. She hadn’t noticed before, but the woman was wearing tailored shorts and 5 inch heels with red soles.   
God help us all, she thought.   
‘I can feel you staring,’ Tissaia threw over her shoulder, and Yennefer took this as a signal that she should start walking too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went on an archaeology field trip last month, and the woman in charge kept alluding to this 'awful behaviour that had happened the year before'.   
> Turned out, someone had actually done what Tissaia is shouting about in this fic.   
> True story.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GUESS WHO'S BACK. BACK AGAIN.  
> No, it's not Slim Shady (I'm sorry), it's me!   
> I may have had a slight breakdown for a few days there, but I'm back to functioning like a ...functioning human being, so updates have returned!   
> Y'all are the best, but I'm sure you know that and don't need me to tell you.

The Forum Romanum was packed with tourists when the university group arrived there, around 10am. The huge, flat space in middle of the city was bustling with people in between the ruined buildings, and Tissaia was looking down on the entire space from the lookout point on the way in. She far preferred being there before or after it was open to the public, but since she had dozens of students with her, her options were limited. She glanced over to where Yennefer was leaning over the railing, enthusiastically pointing things out to Pankratz, who was wearing sunglasses that hid whether he was playing attention or not. Geralt cleared his throat loudly, and the students all gathered around him to listen to whatever he was about to grumble at them. Tissaia turned away from the view and leant back against the barrier, watching the back of her student’s heads as they watched Geralt. She felt someone lean against the railing next to her.   
‘Is he saying words or is he just making one long groaning sound?’ Yennefer asked, jokingly. Tissaia pretended not to hear her. If students saw her not paying attention they might get the idea they can do the same thing.   
‘One long groaning sound, for sure,’ Yennefer concluded, when Tissaia didn’t reply.   
Tissaia continued to stare stoically forward, but there was a small smile on her lips now. She was amused by Yennefer’s insistence on talking.  
‘Y’know, that guy saw me like, 90 percent naked this morning’, Yennefer continued.  
Tissaia whipped her head around to look at Yennefer, who was herself now looking straight ahead with apparent concentration, smirking slightly.   
Tissaia chuckled, and turned away again, speaking in a low voice.   
‘I would imagine you were rather wasted on him, dear,’ she said, and she moved her focus back to Geralt, trying to distinguish his words. Yennefer didn’t speak again, but a few minutes later Tissaia felt a hand touch her back gently, barely making contact at all.   
**  
After the introductory speech the students were led from building to building, standing to listen to some lecturer or other say a small drabble outside each one. Every time they stopped, Tissaia and Yennefer would end up together at the back and Yennefer would make some comment on the speech or ask a question that Tissaia knew she wasn’t really expected to answer. Occasionally their hands would knock and their fingers would latch on to each other’s for a second before letting go, or they would find themselves standing so close together their arms were pressed together and neither would bother moving away. They were being shepherded through the ancient porticos when Tissaia saw something she had never wanted to see again, and found herself pushing Yennefer forcibly off the side of the path, dragging her ‘round the back of a building, and pushing her against the wall.   
‘What the…?!’ Yennefer started to say, loudly and angry with surprise.   
Tissaia clamped her hand over Yennefer’s mouth and whispered at her harshly to be quiet. Yennefer quickly stopped struggling, and Tissaia looked into the violet eyes from only an inch away. Her pupils were blown wide, and Tissaia noticed that Yennefer was breathing quickly under her body.  
‘Philippa is here,’ Tissaia said by way of explanation, but she didn’t bother to remove her hand or stop pinning Yennefer to the wall. Yennefer’s eyes widened even further for a second, and Tissaia bent back a little to peer around the corner they were hiding behind. She saw Philippa holding court in front of her students, Geralt standing behind her with his arms folded over his chest. Philippa gestured behind her somewhere and the group started to move away. They soon disappeared out of sight, and she let her hand fall away from Yennefer’s mouth. She thought she saw a flicker of disappointment fleet across Yennefer’s face, but she must have been imagining what she wanted to see. She stepped back a little so she wasn’t pushing all her body weight against the younger girl, but didn’t break contact.  
‘What the fuck is she doing here?’ Yennefer asked, and she must have finally realised how close Tissaia was because she raised her hands and placed them on Tissaia’s waist, holding her in place.  
Tissaia rolled her eyes at the question, and preened internally at Yennefer’s touch.   
‘Geralt emailed her our entire schedule weeks ago. I’d imagine it was him who told her where we were last night as well. If she asked, it wouldn’t ever occur to him not to tell her,’ she said.  
‘And to think I let that guy see me in my underwear,’ Yennefer joked.   
Tissaia did her best unamused face and made to step back, but Yennefer held her fast against her.   
‘Can I help you with something, Miss Vengerberg?’ Tissaia asked, doing her best to hide the delight she felt when she felt Yennefer gasp softly at the question.   
‘I’d imagine you can help me with quite a few things,’ Yennefer replied, her cheeks slightly flushed.   
‘Mmm,’ Tissaia murmured, pressing herself back against Yennefer. She ghosted her lips over Yennefer’s cheekbone and the edge of her ear and tried to force her quickly clouding brain to make a decision about where exactly she should take this. How far was it plausible to take it in one of the most popular tourist sites in the world? How far was it plausible to push Yennefer? The fog was getting denser, though, and Tissaia was dangerously close to abandoning thinking all together and just taking what she wanted right there.  
‘And what, exactly, makes you think I would help you with anything?’ Tissaia growled into Yennefer’s ear. She nipped Yennefer’s earlobe, then leant back a little to look her in the eye.   
Yennefer’s hands tightened on Tissaia’s hips at those words, and her hips bucked slightly into the professor. Tissaia chuckled lowly, and hovered her lips millimetres away from Yennefer’s. Yennefer tried a few times to capture her lips, but Tissaia kept her distance. Instead, flicked her tongue against Yennefer’s upper lip, and Yennefer’s hips bucked again.   
‘You are eager, aren’t you?’ Tissaia said, enjoying herself. Yennefer whined, and tipped her head back against the wall behind her. Tissaia pressed a quick kiss on the neck in front of her and stepped back, ignoring Yennefer’s protestations.   
‘Shall we join the others?’ Tissaia said, smoothing down her shirt and trying with all her might to seem composed and not on the edge of losing control.   
Yennefer pulled a face that looked a lot like sulking, and Tissaia smirked.   
‘I think they’ll be at the temple to Mars,’ she said, and Yennefer groaned an pushed herself away from the wall.   
‘If we must,’ Yennefer said, walking out onto the path.   
‘Less snark, more walking,’ Tissaia replied, but with a smile that made Yennefer stop sulking and smile widely in return.


	21. Chapter 21

Yennefer suffered the rest of the tour around the Forum with Jaskier at the back of the group, eventually using him for shade when the sun started to give her a headache. When she and Tissaia had re-joined the group Tissaia had marched right up to where Philippa was speaking to her students, whispered something in the woman’s ear, and took over the lecture. Since then, Tissaia had quickly jumped in every time Philippa had attempted to speak, causing Philippa to get more and more annoyed each time, much to Yennefer’s amusement. Eventually Philippa just melted away, and Yennefer took this to be a win for Team Tissaia. 

xx

Some part of Yennefer, and she knew exactly which part if she was being honest, had hoped that Tissaia would grab her the minute they returned to the hotel. But no such thing occurred. Yennefer gave herself a quick pep talk to calm down the unwanted feeling of disappointment and concentrated on pretending her life wasn’t slightly emptier when she wasn’t being pushed up against a wall by Tissaia de Vries. She was playing an after-dinner game with Jaskier and a couple of other students in the hotel bar when she next saw her professor. Yennefer was jumping up and down in delight after managing to pass not one BUT TWO ice cubes from her mouth to the mouth of some small blonde girl who was in her Archaeology in the Landscape class when she saw Tissaia come into the bar, throw Yennefer’s group a scathing look, and walk over to where Narcissus was sitting, nursing a pint of beer. Jaskier nudged her and tried to pass her more ice cubes, but she kept her mouth firmly closed this time.  
‘I’m going to go get another drink,’ Yennefer said to him.  
Jaskier spit the ice cubes back out into his hand and looked around frantically for somewhere to put them as they started melting. A waitress had obviously snuck around a second before and cleared away all the glasses. Eventually he gave up and threw them surreptitiously under a table.  
‘I’m coming too!’ he said, and he followed her up to the bar.  
There wasn’t anyone else waiting, so they got served quickly.  
‘What can I get for you?’ asked the thin man behind the bar, in Italian.  
‘Due Birra Moretti, per favore,’ Yennefer replied, and the barman was about to turn away to get their drinks when Jaskier shouted ‘and two shots of tequila!’ at the man. He poured those first, and left them on the counter as he poured the beer.  
‘Here’s to love! And also…women!’ Jaskier declared before they took the shots. Yennefer grimaced at the taste and put the empty glass back down on the counter. The beer arrived and Jaskier paid.  
‘Here’s to love _and _women?’ Yennefer asked as they walked to an empty table and sat down.  
‘Yes, well they’re not necessarily the same thing, are they Yen,’ replied Jaskier, with an air of worldliness.  
Yennefer started to drink her half-litre and stared at where Tissaia was sitting with Narcissus. She felt Jaskier move next to her, and follow her eyeline with his.  
‘Which one are we staring at?’ he asked, innocently.  
Yennefer didn’t answer and kept glaring across the room.  
‘Not that it matters, neither of them would ever deign to mix with us common folk anyway’. He concluded.  
Yennefer knew he was goading her, but she chose to answer regardless.  
‘Did you just call me common,’ she said in a dangerous voice, turning to look at him in an impersonation of anger.  
Jaskier placed his beer down on the table and put both his hands up in resignation.  
‘Unless you have evidence to the contrary, I’m afraid you are simply one of us, love,’ he said.  
Yennefer smirked accidentally, and couldn’t suppress it quickly enough for Jaskier not to notice.  
‘Did you fuck Geralt?’ He exclaimed, loudly. A few heads around them turned in their direction, and she hit him on the shoulder.  
‘Shhh! Anyway, I wasn’t aware you two were on first name basis,’ Yennefer replied.  
Jaskier blushed a little and scratched the back of his neck.  
‘Jaskier, you man whore! Tell me all about it! Does he take the leather off?!?!’ Yennefer asked, excitedly.  
This time Jaskier was the one to try and make her be quiet. He refused to tell her any more though, until she talked first.  
‘Oh I see’, Yennefer said. ‘You think you’re clever’.  
Jaskier shrugged and took a drink, choking slightly and ruining the air of suavity he was obviously trying to project.  
‘Nothing has happened between me and Narcissus. Except that time he saw me naked. But we don’t talk about that,’ Yennefer stated.  
‘And you and Professor de Vries?’ Jaskier prompted.  
‘You tell me first,’ Yennefer said.  
Jaskier looked smug and started to talk.  
‘So today, as we walked past Ceasar’s grave, or whatever it was, the place with all the flowers anyway, he, get this…’  
Jaskier leaned closer to her and lowered his voice to say the next bit.  
‘… put his hand on my lower back to guide me around the grave,” Jaskier finally concluded, grinning like an idiot.  
Yennefer couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.  
‘He…touched your back?’ She clarified, still laughing. Jaskier looked less than pleased.  
‘Fuck off, I’m working on it,’ he replied. ‘At least he’s actually touched me, Tissaia won’t even look at you’.  
Yennefer had just managed to stop laughing, but that last statement threw her over the edge again. Her cheeks were starting to hurt, and she struggled to get her next sentence out.  
‘She nearly fucked me against a stone wall in broad daylight earli…..’  
Yennefer was interrupted by a hand landing on her shoulder, and Tissaia’s voice addressing Jaskier.  
‘He drinks beer. He’s not fussy which one. And take him two or you’ll be back at the bar very quickly,’ Tissaia said in a clipped voice. Jaskier looked at her in confusion.  
‘Now, Pankratz,’ she chided, and he seemed to suddenly understand what she was saying and hurried off to the bar. Yennefer watched him go with amusement, and felt Tissaia’s breath suddenly on her ear.  
‘Come with me, now,’ she said, and Yennefer stood up as fast as she possibly could and followed Tissaia out of the bar, not even caring that she was leaving half a drink behind. She only looked behind her once, to make sure that Jaskier had found Narcissus okay, and he had. __

__Xx_ _

__Tissaia led Yennefer to the end of a deserted corridor and around a corner that led to nothing but a fire escape. The minute they were unlikely to be disturbed, she turned on Yennefer, aware that her eyes were probably glinting menacingly. Yennefer’s pupils were blown wide, but Tissaia was pretty sure this was due to arousal rather than fear. Although, to be fair, she was going for a healthy mix of the two right at this moment in time.  
The minute she had walked into that bar and seen Yennefer pulling some other student towards her by the shirt and pressing their mouths together she felt anger rising through her body. And after spending half an hour silently sitting next to Geralt and watching Yennefer be fawned over by that fucking Pankratz boy, she’d had enough. She threw Pankratz at Geralt to keep those two happy and led Yennefer out. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do, but that seemed to be her natural state at the moment so she didn’t worry about it. She rounded on Yen, and looked her up and down. The shirt she was wearing was barely buttoned up to decent, and Tissaia could see the black lace of her bra in between her tits. She looked back into violet eyes.  
‘I’m unhappy, Yennefer. Do you know why?’ Tissaia finally asked.  
Concern and defiance flicked over Yennefer’s face, and Tissaia watched. But Yennefer didn’t answer.  
‘I asked if you know why I’m upset,’ Tissaia repeated.  
‘No,’ Yennefer finally replied. She seemed unsure of herself, so Tissaia dialled it back a little. She reached out a hand and ran her thumb over Yennefer’s bottom lip. This seemed to calm the girl down a bit.  
‘I think Pankratz rather likes you,’ Tissaia ventured.  
Yennefer snorted in laughter, and then a look of realisation dawned on her face.  
‘Oh you’re…’ Yennefer started, but she tailed off.  
‘I’m what?’ Tissaia pushed.  
‘I’m not sleeping with Jaskier. I thought that was obvious,’ Yennefer said.  
‘It’s not obvious dear, otherwise I wouldn’t be asking about it’.  
‘But you threw him at Geralt!’  
‘And?’  
Yennefer didn’t answer that time.  
Tissaia watched Yennefer’s throat as she swallowed, and allowed her hand to drop from Yennifer’s chin to her collar bone, and stroked the side of her neck. Yennefer leant her head away slightly, to give Tissaia more room.  
‘I’m sorry,’ Yennefer breathed.  
Tissaia’s hand stilled in surprise.  
‘What are you sorry for, Yennefer?’ she asked. This was an interesting development. She started moving her hand again.  
‘I’m sorry if you thought I wanted anyone else to touch me,’ Yennefer replied.  
Tissaia struggled to make sure she didn’t look too physically pleased with that statement.  
‘And what about the blonde, in the bar. She touched you, didn’t she’ Tissaia ventured. She was starting to feel more and more confident that Yennefer was on the same page as her. As she remembered the blonde, she felt her lip snarl and her hand tightened a little around Yennefer’s throat.  
Yennefer gasped and grabbed Tissaia’s wrist, but she held her hand in place rather than pull it away. Tissaia squeezed a little, and Yennefer answered.  
‘I was trying to pretend I wasn’t wondering where you were,’ Yennefer admitted, her tongue darting out to wet her lips.  
Tissaia hummed and dropped her hand. Yennefer looked upset at the loss of contact but didn’t complain.  
‘I think you should come back to my room with me,’ Tissaia said, matter-of-factly. ‘How do you feel about that?’  
Yennefer nodded enthusiastically, and Tissaia couldn’t help but smile a little.  
‘Wonderful,’ she said, and she turned around and started walking in the right direction, sure that Yennefer would follow._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY I HAVENT UPDATED IN SO LONG I HAVE NO EXCUSE, BUT HEY GUYS!!!! 
> 
> Also, hey Seb!!! This pandemic may be keeping us physically apart but be rest assured, you will always be inside me...  
> or something like that...


	22. Chapter 22

Yennefer followed Tissaia all the way to her hotel room in silence. Occasionally she felt the urge to say something, but she managed to not speak. Yennefer stayed standing back as Tissaia unlocked her hotel room door, even through she felt like she wanted to grab the back of Tissaia’s shirt and hold on. She thought that maybe she should try to contain her excessive neediness for at least a little while longer. Maybe start to play it cool. Tissaia motioned that Yennefer should enter before her, and Yennefer brushed past her and into the room. Once she was inside, however, she realised she did not know what to do and found herself just standing in the middle of the floor, a little unsure. She watched as Tissaia shut the door behind them and fiddled with the lock for a second. The professor then proceeded to walk into the room and move around as if Yennefer wasn’t there. Yennefer watched, occasionally reminding herself to breath, as Tissaia took her blazer off and hung it on the back of a chair and placed her bag on the desk, taking a notebook, a pen, and her phone out of it and placing them neatly on the desk. Tissaia nudged the notebook a millimetre to the side and finally turned around to face Yennefer, who found herself annoyed she had been ignored.   
‘I see you finally remembered I am here,’ Yennefer said, aware she sounded impudent.   
Tissaia looked into her eyes and quirked an eyebrow. She walked over until she was standing barely a foot in front of Yennefer and stared at her, one eyebrow still raised. If Yennefer had expected Tissaia to reply to that comment, she was soon corrected. Eventually being stared at in silence became too much for Yennefer and she spoke again.   
‘Are you going to do something, or shall I just go back to the bar?’ she continued.   
The amusement quickly fell from Tissaia’s face and was replaced with a look of contempt. Yennefer squirmed a little but refused to take the statement back or look away. Tissaia hummed a little, turned around, and sat in the chair her blazer was hanging on, folding her arms over her chest and one leg over the other.   
‘I invited you here, I didn’t force you Yennefer. You may leave whenever you want,’ Tissaia said.   
Fuck. Yennefer really didn’t want to leave and Tissaia knew this. She watched as Tissaia dropped one of her shoes off her heel and bounced it from her toes. She couldn’t think of a reply this time, so she just kept her mouth shut.   
‘I thought as much,’ Tissaia concluded.   
Yennefer rolled her eyes before she could stop herself.   
‘Don’t do that again,’ Tissaia said coolly, still surveying her from the chair.   
Yennefer squirmed a little and studied the carpet for a moment.  
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled.   
‘Take your shirt off please, Yennefer,’ Tissaia replied.   
Yennefer snapped her eyes back up to Tissaia’s face in surprise. Tissaia just continued to look levelly at her. Yennefer knew she had a nice body, but still had to fight through shyness to start undoing the buttons on her shirt. She kept her eyes on Tissaia’s face, scouring it for a reaction as she dropped the fabric to the floor.  
‘Now your jeans,’ Tissaia said.   
Yennefer fumbled with the button at the waistband and shimmied them down her legs after kicking her shoes off. Now she was standing in her underwear for the second time that day, and it felt decidedly different than it had that morning when it had been Geralt watching her. She felt her thighs clench together and whimpered a little at the feeling. She could feel how wet she was already.   
Tissaia’s seemed to be unaffected by Yennefer’s state of undress, but the foot that had been playing with her shoe had stilled.   
Eventually Tissaia stood up and walked over to Yennefer. She extended one hand and trailed a finger from Yennefer’s collar bone down between her tits, down her abs and hooked it inside the waistband of her underwear. She kept it there as she spoke.   
‘You can be very good at doing what you’re told,’ Tissaia said, her eyes flicking all over Yennefer’s face and body.   
‘I can be,’ Yennefer replied, with effort. Speaking was becoming more difficult the closer Tissaia got to her.   
Tissaia brought her other hand ‘round the back of Yennefer’s head, and kissed her.   
Xx  
Tissaia walked backwards, bringing Yennefer with her, until her calves hit the edge of the bed. She sat down and pulled Yennefer to straddle her, pulling her hips until their bodies were flush against each other. She kissed Yennefer again, pulling on her hips rhythmically to encourage Yennefer to grind against her. Yennefer wrapped her arms around Tissaia’s neck and held on, tightly. Yennefer moaned into her mouth as she ground down again Tissaia’s lap, and Tissaia nearly got lost in the feeling. Yennefer’s breathing became more frantic, and she was starting to lose the rhythm in her hips. She was about to come, and this pulled Tissaia back to reality. There was no way she was going to let Yennefer come before she’d begged at least twice. Tissaia told Yennefer to stand up and she did, with a such a look of dejection and confusion on her face that Tissaia nearly felt sorry for her.   
‘Lie down on the bed,’ Tissaia said, standing up as well.   
‘Okay,’ Yennefer replied, shakily.   
‘Oh, and take your underwear off. It will only get in the way’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more, I promise.   
> Either that or I'll just cut it off there and leave you to fill in the rest of it in your imagination.   
> MWAH HA HA HA HA .


	23. Chapter 23

Tissaia stood at the foot of the bed, looking down at Yennefer laid out in front of her. Yennefer was entirely naked, her hands lying at her sides and fidgeting with the sheets underneath her. Tissaia let the Hermes scarf she was holding run through her hands like water, enjoying the way Yennefer was looking at her with a mixture of trepidation and excitement.  
‘Put your hands above your head, and don’t move them,’ Tissaia said. Yennefer did as she was told quickly, and Tissaia smiled a little in approval. She placed a knee on the edge of the bed and crawled forward until she was straddling Yennefer’s hips, her hands either side of Yennefer’s head, and their faces only centimetres apart. Yennefer kept her hands above her head as she was told but Tissaia felt her hips buck slightly.  
‘Stay still,’ Tissaia said. ‘I’ll tell you when I want you to move’.  
Yennefer stilled underneath her, and Tissaia moved her face to whisper into her ear.  
‘Tell me,’ she said, pausing to nip at Yennefer’s earlobe and listening to the other woman’s breath hitch as she did. ‘Do you like being tied up?’.  
Yennefer’s head nodded enthusiastically next to her.  
‘Have you been tied up before?’ Tissaia continued, moving her mouth down to Yennefer’s neck to kiss her pulse point. Yennefer moaned slightly and then spoke.  
‘Yes,’ she mumbled.  
Tissaia raised her head and looked at Yennefer with curiosity. Tissaia was unsure how to feel about this information. On the one hand, this was great news and meant the girl would be able to tell her what she liked. On the other, Tissaia bristled at the idea someone had been here before her, making Yennefer feel all the same things she was now. She shook her head slightly. Yennefer’s violet eyes were tinged with concern. Tissaia forced those thoughts away for later and smiled menacingly. She dipped her head until her lips were almost touching Yennefer’s, and let her chase the kiss for a few second before speaking again.  
‘Do you want your hands tied above you to the headboard, or behind your back?’ Tissaia asked.  
‘Whichever you prefer,’ Yennefer replied, instantly.  
Tissaia kissed her chastely before sitting up.  
‘Good answer,’ she said, and she grabbed the scarf from where she’d left it on the bed and started tying Yennefer’s wrists first together, and then to the slats of the headboard.  
‘Is that too tight?’ Tissaia asked.  
Yennefer shook her head, and squirmed underneath her. Tissaia lost her train of thought for a second at the feeling of Yennefer’s hips pressing into her, but quickly returned to the pressing matters in front of her.  
‘Relax your arms,’ She said.  
Yennefer did so, and Tissaia was satisfied that she was comfortable enough. It would be a shame to have to untie her too soon.  
‘We need a safe word. You know how the traffic light system works?’ Tissaia asked, looking at the way Yennefer’s arms were stretched above her head. She was so fucking beautiful.  
Yennefer nodded.  
‘Tell me,’ Tissaia continued.  
Yennefer whined a little in frustration but answered promptly.  
‘Green means everything is fine, Yellow means I’m nearing my limit, and red means I need to stop immediately’, she answered.  
‘Good girl. And you’ll use those words when you’re asked or whenever you feel you need to, trusting me to stop right away no question if you say red. Yes?’.  
‘Yes’.  
‘Good,’ Tissaia purred. ‘I’m going to tell you the rules now, and you’re going to listen and nod if you understand’.  
Yennefer nodded, staring into Tissaia’s eyes expectantly.  
Tissaia allowed her gaze to roam over Yennefer’s body underneath her as she spoke.  
‘You are not to make any noise unless I tell you you can. Understand?’.  
Tissaia saw Yennefer nod at the edge of her vision as she trailed one hand over Yennefer’s stomach and around the swell of her breasts, eventually letting her thumb drag across a nipple. Yennefer gasped, and her hips bucked causing Tissaia to almost moan.  
‘You are not allowed to move in any way I don’t tell you. Understand?’  
Yennefer agreed. Tissaia repeated her previous motions and this time Yennefer didn’t move at all. She brought up her other hand and pinched both nipples at the same time, first gently and then harder. Still Yennefer didn’t move, but when Tissaia looked into her face she was biting her lip, and her hands were clenched tightly around the scarf.  
‘You’re being very good,’ Tissaia said as she watched Yennefer’s abs quiver with the effort to stay still. Tissaia lifted herself from Yennefer’s hips and moved until she was kneeling in between her open legs. Her shirt was restricting her movement so she undid the buttons, but didn’t take it off. She ran a finger from Yennefer’s knee and up her inner thigh, then across where she was already glistening with wetness and down the other thigh, repeating this movement a few times.  
‘The last rule is maybe the hardest, but you’ve been so good so far I have no doubt’s you will manage it,’ Tissaia said, letting her hand come to rest millimetres away from Yennefer’s centre.  
‘Don’t come,’ Tissaia finished, and she pushed two fingers roughly inside her.  
Yennefer moaned loudly and her hips pushed against Tissaia’s hand, but she seemed to quickly notice her mistake and she dropped her hips back to the bed and clenched her jaw, her eyes wide. Tissaia knew that would happen, but Yennefer was so wet and tight around her fingers she had no inclination to remove them.  
‘Don’t do that again or I’ll stop and leave you here like this for the rest of the night’ Tissaia said by way of warning, her hand still. She slowly pulled her fingers back s, then rammed them back into Yennefer. This time the girl managed to follow the rules. Tissaia repeated the motion a few times before finally picking up the pace. She leant forward and braced herself on her free arm, leaning down to kiss Yennefer. Yennefer kissed back hungrily, messily, panting and whimpering as Tissaia fucker her hard. She was barely managing to keep still by this point.  
‘You can move,’ Tissaia said, and Yennefer did so immediately, lifting one leg to hook Tissaia closer to her and grinding her hips furiously. Yennefer’s head was tipped back and her eyes screwed shut, and she was biting her lip so hard Tissaia was surprised she hadn’t drawn blood yet. She slowed her hand down a little then stilled it completely, and began circling Yennefer’s clit with her thumb.  
‘If I let you come, do you promise to scream my name?’ Tissaia said, dragging her tongue up the side of Yennefer’s neck.  
‘Yes!’ Yennefer strangled out, squirming under Tissaia, trying to fuck herself against Tissaia’s fingers which were still inside her.  
‘Okay then. Come’, Tissaia ordered, and she started fucking Yennefer even harder than before, keeping her thumb on her clit and dipping down to catch her nipple in between her teeth.  
Yennefer was strong underneath her, and moved in time with Tissaia to try and take her as deep as she could. She moaned loudly, and Tissaia felt her movements start to become less controlled and frantic.  
‘I told you to come,’ Tissaia repeated and Yennefer finally did as she was told, screaming Tissaia’s name as she did so. Tissaia kept moving until Yennefer had calmed down a little, then stopped. Yennefer whimpered when she pulled out her fingers. Tissaia reached up and untied Yennefer’s wrists, and Yennefer immediately wrapped her arms around Tissaia’s neck, pulling her down to kiss her.  
‘mm’, Tissaia mumbled. ‘Colour?’  
‘Very green,’ Yennefer replied, stretching her back.  
‘Good. Because I’m nowhere near finished with you yet’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is anyone else here addicted to Pepsi Max? No? Just me?


	24. Chapter 24

Yennefer’s sleep was disturbed by a loud and persistent knocking noise. At first she thought it was a particularly enthusiastic woodpecker, but as she woke up more she realised that someone was knocking at the door. _The_ door. The hotel room door in Italy. Her _professor’s_ hotel room door in Italy. Yennefer remembered where she was, and noticed that she was still wet from the night before. The knocking continued. Tissaia was not in the bed with her. Yennefer had no idea where Tissaia was, and reasoned that opening the door of a room that wasn’t hers (let alone a room she probably wasn’t meant to be in) probably wasn’t very polite. She snuggled back down into the bed, and let whoever was banging on the door continue as they saw fit.  
Yennefer awoke again an immeasurable amount of time later. The first thing she noticed was that the knocking had stopped. The second was that she could smell coffee. And the third was that she could feel the weight of someone sitting on the bed behind her. Yennefer smiled and turned onto her back. She stretched, and purposefully allowed the sheets to fall to her waist. She opened her eyes and saw Tissaia lying against the headboard fully dressed in fresh clothes, a cup of coffee in one hand and a stapled document in the other. Tissaia was looking down at her in amusement.  
‘It moves!’ Tissaia said, smiling and widening her eyes in mock surprise.  
Yennefer yawned and pulled the sheets back up over her shoulders. She was chilly.  
Tissaia moved her coffee to her other hand and pulled the sheets lower again. Yennefer looked at her quizzically.  
‘It’s a shame to hide perfection,’ Tissaia said by way of explanation, and she went back to reading her notes.  
Yennefer smirked.  
‘I wasn’t aware you had noticed,’ she replied.  
‘I always notice,’ Tissaia drawled, her eyes never leaving the paper.  
Yennefer glanced at the bedside clock, and was surprised to see It was only 7am.  
‘What time do we have to be downstairs?’ she asked.  
‘I need to be down at 8.30, you should be there anywhere between late, and very late’.  
‘Are you saying that you’re unhappy with my timekeeping abilities, Professor de Vries?’ Yennefer replied, feeling Tissaia’s waist through her silk shirt.  
‘I’m saying that in order to not arouse suspicion, you should behave as you usually would’. Tissaia finished her coffee and placed the cup down on a coaster. She calmly read the last page of whatever-it-was she was reading, and put that down, too.  
Yennefer started pulling Tissaia’s shirt out from where it was tucked into her pencil skirt.  
‘Where did you go this morning?’ Yennefer asked, watching as soft skin became visible above the waistband.  
‘Hmm?’ Tissaia replied, stroking Yennefer’s hair away from her face.  
‘This morning, when someone was knocking at the door,’ Yennefer continued. ‘Where were you?’.  
‘I didn’t go anywhere, baby,’ Tissaia replied. ‘You must have been dreaming’.  
Yennefer stopped what she was doing and looked up at Tissaia, searchingly. Tissaia looked back into violet eyes, evenly. Yennefer didn’t push it, but she knew she hadn’t been asleep. She knew she was in no position to demand Tissaia tell her where she was, so she filed it away for later and went back to what she was doing.  
Yennefer had succeeded in untucking the half of Tissaia’s shirt that was closest to her, and she dipped her head down to kiss the exposed skin. Tissaia gasped.  
‘Y’know,’ Yennefer spoke between kisses as she moved ‘round to Tissaia’s stomach. ‘I still haven’t seen you naked’.  
It was true. They hadn’t gone to sleep until after 4, and Yennefer had come more times than she could count, but the whole time Tissaia hadn’t bothered to take her clothes off. She had even fallen asleep in them.  
‘Well, I was rather busy you know’, Tissaia replied, when Yennefer pointed this out. Yennefer had managed to untuck the whole shirt and was working on the buttons.  
‘Still, it’s rather unfair’.  
‘What about last night gave you the impression I have any interest in ‘fair’, Miss Venegerberg?’.  
‘How very classically Roman of you,’ Yennefer replied, finally getting all the buttons undone.  
Tissaia chuckled under her breath, and kept playing with Yennefer’s hair.  
‘Are you proposing a solution to this alleged unfairness?’ Tissaia asked.  
Yennefer licked across the top of Tissaia’s bra before she answered.  
‘Oh you’re going to let me have an opinion?’ Yennefer teased.  
‘Careful,’ Tissaia warned. ‘You’re altogether too cocky in the morning’.  
Yennefer bit the top of Tissaia’s left breast.  
‘But maybe I’ll allow it this once….’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been approx. 150 tins of pepsi max since i last updated, and I apologise.


End file.
